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Hi I'm Leslie

I'm a full-time farmer in Western Wisconsin where I raise meat goats and sheep on pasture using regenerative and rotational grazing practices.

I created this website because
I had so many people reaching out, both locally and beyond, wanting to know more about how I was raising and marketing goats.

I also recognized that it IS so hard to find information in this space. I wanted to share what I've learned along the way and reduce your time searching the depths of the internet.

LEARN MORE

M5 Entrepreneurs feature and opportunities

I may earn affiliate income from links in the blog post. I only promote products I actually use in my farm and business.

A large part of my journey as an entrepreneur has been to be an active lifelong learner. One of the more valuable farm business resources has been the M5 Entrepreneurs coursework and being a part of the community of other farmers, ranchers, and small business owners. 

Recently I was featured in the M5 Entrepreneurs Academy newsletter and Instagram page. Thank you to Mary Hefferman and her team for the kind words and recognition of the work we’re doing on our goat and sheep farm. 

You can read more about the feature in the Instagram post below:

Here’s the feature in the most recent M5 Entrepreneurs email:

About the M5 Entrepreneurs Academy

Mary and her husband Brian, run Five Marys Ranch in Fort Jones, Calif., and sell their beef, pork and lamb directly to customers online with a delivery model using UPS and FedEx. Over the years they’ve grown their ranch and retail business. 

Mary created the M5 Entrepreneurs program to help other farmers and ranchers grow their own direct-to-consumer retail businesses and share the work they’ve done behind the scenes to get to where they are at now. 

My experience with the M5 Entrepreneurs

I decided to invest in Mary’s coursework in 2019, the first year she started the program. At the time I was ready to really get serious about growing our direct-to-consumer retail business. I was especially interested in learning how to effectively sell meat online through e-commerce and ship it directly to customers. 

I enrolled in the full Small Business Fundamentals Package (previously the Small Business Accelerator), which is now just about all of her courses under one umbrella. You can still buy it together, but if you’re interested in just one area to focus on you can choose just that course.

If you’re thinking about getting into online sales, even if it’s with a local emphasis and shipping meat, I’d highly recommend the Selling & Shipping course. Mary shares her process and approach including packaging, shipping rates/timing strategies and more that she’s refined over time. 

While her ranch is different from our farm, I was able to start from her foundation and make an online sales and shipping business to fit our needs. I likely saved myself thousands of dollars on supplies and shipping rates, as well as time, by using her coursework as a framework for my own farm. 

Opportunity to save

Mary is also graciously offering a special $200 discount to my community for use with purchasing any of her workshops. Use the code CC200.

NEW! M5 Small Business Convention 

Mary also has a new event coming this winter — the M5 Small Business Convention in Fort Worth, Texas, Jan. 29-Feb. 1. 

It’ll be a gathering of some of the most inspiring and knowledgeable minds in small business, including Mary of Five Marys Ranch. Learn more here.

She’s also are offering an All-Access Pass to the library of ALL the M5 Entrepreneurs workshops and courses ($11k value in individual workshops) for $499 as an add-on the the convention or $599 as an add-on to a virtual seat at convention. This is a great opportunity if you’re really ready to invest in your business.


Learn more about the M5 Entrepreneurs

Marketing our farm’s products direct to consumer is very rewarding and enjoyable, but it has come with a lot of hard work, growth, learning and patience over the years. While I’ve leaned on my own experiences and training in business planning and marketing, I’ve found that it is also very valuable to seek out new opportunities to continue to grow my skills as entrepreneur, in addition to my craft as a farmer. That translates into working with mentors, taking classes, and seeking out other experiences to continue to grow as a business owner, ultimately helping strengthen my farm for the future.

One of those experiences has been being a part of the M5 Small Business Accelerator, an online entrepreneurship course led by Mary Heffernan of Five Marys Farms in Fort Jones, Calif. I started the course four years ago. It’s been a great decision for our farm, even though we already had been selling our meat direct to our customers.

About the M5 course

There are three modules to the M5 Small Business Accelerator Program, think of them as mini-classes: Small Business from Scratch, Social Media from Scratch, and Selling & Shipping from Scratch. I also have access to the Beginning Business Bootcamp and the M5 Community. 

As soon as I was enrolled the course, I went through all the curriculum to get familiar with the content. I ended up listing to most of the audio instruction while I was working around the farm.

M5 Entrepreneurs: Shipping Perishables from Scratch Course

My main focus when I started the M5 program in 2019 was to get our e-commerce platform and shipping program up and running. So I dove into the Selling and Shipping from Scratch module in more detail to get things set up for our farm.

This module by far has been the most worthwhile component to the program. Mary shares her process and the different options she’s researched including on to set up an e-commerce site, how to actually ship, packaging options, working with carriers, and the fulfillment process.

The time and money I saved figuring out how to set up this up for our farm was well worth the investment of the course. I was able to review the course materials, then explore and research the options and vendors that worked well for us.

It’s helped get this part of our business off the ground and running without being stuck in the research phase of where to start.

I’ve been able to collaborate with other M5 entrepreneurs and split orders of shipping supplies to help manage our investment in quality shipping liners.

M5 Academy: Small Business from Scratch Course

Since we were already up and running the Small Business from Scratch module was a good review, sort of a check list of sorts, to make sure we had certain processes and items in place as a business.

I can understand why Mary includes this in the coursework. In order to run your business you need to make sure you have everything in order and not missing pieces. If your farm was adding a direct market component or related business to an existing operation, I can see how this module would be very useful to make sure you have everything in place as you get started.

M5 Workshop: Social Media from Scratch Course

The third module is Social Media from Scratch. This has been a great tool and resource for us is as well in terms of looking at how we approach using social media and marketing platforms to grow our business and build relationships with our community.

And I’ll be honest I went through all the coursework in this area so I had a good foundation to help point me, but my focus in 2020 was to get my shipping program and e-commerce site up and off the ground.

As I move forward this will be an area where I will dive back into the content again.

M5 Entrepreneurs Community

I’m also a part of the M5 Entrepreneurs Community, an online community. That part of the program has been so valuable. Mary is right in there answering questions.

Other students are sharing resources and experiences. It’s been a very collaborative and supportive community for growing our business.

It’s helped me be able to just GO on pursuing projects and not get stuck on the planning stage since there’s so much shared experiences and feedback on products, technology, marketing approaches and more from more than several hundred farmers and small business owners.


Have questions about the M5 Entrepreneurs courses?! Please Ask!!
This is a big investment. I get that!! If you have more questions about the M5 Small Business Accelerator program or want to see some of the work I’ve done, curriculum, etc., please feel free to ask them below in the comments or send me a message at leslie@cylonrollingacres.com.

Enrollment is open now
Right now enrollment for the M5 Small Business Accelerator. You can learn more about it here.

If you’re on the fence about joining the Accelerator Program, or just getting started with your business the Small Business Bootcamp is a great place to jump in and get started. We have access to that program as well and the curriculum is very hands on with work to get you on the ground and started in your business.

If you said yes to the M5 course…

to the M5 Small Business Accelerator, here’s my advice:

Who-hoo! Congrats for making a great investment in you and your business.

Start the coursework right away. Go through everything while you’re excited to grow the business side of your farm and not overwhelmed by it.

Then, decide what your focus will be on for the quarter or the year and start working through that part of the coursework. It won’t do you any good to wait to find the right time to put it to use. You need to start somewhere. You’ll only get out of it what you put in. I’ve decided to make the most of my investment and it has been so worth it!


Q&A: M5 Small Business Accelerator

Send me your questions and I’ll be glad to answer them. I’ll add them below so others who are considering the coursework can review them as well.

Did you learn about grant writing during this program? Or is that something that you have done and researched on your own?

So kind of. Mary shares some of the grant opportunities, but most I found on my own. And, really a lot of grants are regionally focused, so it makes sense to do your own digging into opportunities. But where the course has really helped with grants is focusing in on my project and how I’m going to do it and building the budget for it.

For example, with the refrigerated trailer I was able to use the M5 community to learn about what other farms are using / addressing the cold transportation challenge and then made the decision on how I was going to meet my goal.

I’m working on 2 local foods marketing grants that will help with marketing initiatives – the coursework and community have been great for planning on what I could so for this, as well as building my budget with getting leads on vendors, products, etc.

Update: Since I first wrote this post and have updated it, I’ve received both of these grants: Wisconsin Buy Local Grant and the USDA Value Added Producer Grant.

What’s been your experience with the course? Can you offer any insights? I’m concerned that I may not follow through and see results. 

The course is what you put into it since it’s self-paced. But it is really good. Since it’s a big investment, I’ve decided to utilize as much from it as I could and am continuing to do so. I went through and listened to all the course modules (they’re in video or an audio file) while I worked on the farm then have gone back as I’m working on specific items. I knew if I didn’t do that to start, I may not get to everything right away. My approach is to get out as much as I can from it!

How did you get started shipping?

Okay, so this question doesn’t come up when people ask me about the M5 program, but I get it all the time from other farmers. But it seems to be a good fit to include with this Q&A section. My answer is simple, the M5 Small Business community and course gave me the foundation and resources to get it off the ground and running.

Did you get your new website started through the M5 class?

One item that I’ve been recently working on is this new website for my farming blog: www.grazingwithleslie.com, as an extension from our farm website: www.cylonrollingacres.com, which is our consumer facing sales site.
Through the course and the M5 Community I was able to learn the skills and strategy to build this site, as well as the technical know-how with the platform Showit, with guidance from Liz at Britelime Creative, who is one of Mary’s go-to web gurus.

  1. […] project plans. I’ve used other farmers, former marketing colleagues, and classmates from the M5 Small Business Accelerator program as […]

  2. Marissa says:

    Leslie, thank you so much for talking with me about this. I signed up!

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Legal disclaimer: All information provided is based on personal experience and is provided for educational and information use only. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless our website, company and owner for any direct or indirect loss or conduct incurred as a result of your use of our website and any related communications. This applies to, but is not limited to, business operational information and consulting, as well as farm and goat management practices.Any animal health information provided on this website is based on personal experience or information provided by others whose treatments and practices have been discussed with a veterinarian. In all situations, it is the responsibility of the livestock owner to consult with a veterinarian before using any animal health practices shared on this website or by this company and its owner. See the full legal disclaimer here.