Ep. 78 - McFarland Production's Natalie McFarland presented by COWGIRL Magazine
Our very fist guest from the COWGIRL Magazine 30 Under 30 collaboration is none other than Natalie McFarland, someone that our That Western Life team works closely with every week through Western Insights Media. The owner of McFarland Productions, Natalie lives in the great state of Oregon, where her passion for promoting agriculture is second to none! Join us as we dive deep into the creation of McFarland Productions, the challenges of entrepreneurship, managing a team, and the artistic talents of Natalie herself!
Natalie McFarland, owner McFarland Productions
Natalie and That Western Life Backstory
We’ve talked on the podcast a couple times on the podcast about how Natalie and host, Katie Schrock, met when judging the Eugene ProRodeo rodeo queen pageant. At that time, Natalie had just started to pursue a side hobby of photography with a hint of website management and they both had big goals for what their small idea for their businesses could turn into.
The Journey of McFarland Productions
“McFarland Productions as it is today has changed quite a bit from where it started,” says Natalie, but videography is one aspect that most people know them. Overall, as long as it is digital, it’s probably something that they work on.
All of the people and company’s that they work with are from the agriculture industry from farms, ranches, businesses, silversmiths on the large side and the one-man shops of makers as well.
“I am always amazed at what someone can do,” says Natalie, who has loved working with both large and small brands. “McFarland Productions had started as just photography … with 2008 being the first time I got paid for it.”
After getting married, Natalie had a phenomenal wedding photographer who became extremely influential to the starting of her business. An agriculture teacher at Roseburg High School, Natalie’s team hires Angela’s during the summer to assist their team. Getting to know her as a mentor and as a friend, someone that they can hire to do the job, it really inspired Natalie to take what she always dreamed about and make it a reality.
In high school, it wasn’t really a consideration but once Natalie got rolling and realized that she could stay in the middle of her passion of agriculture and do the promoting AND have the camera in her hand AND help people promote their businesses AND promote agriculture - she knew she had to take a chance on it!
Starting with weddings, their busiest wedding year was 38 ranch weddings but it built a hunger to help grow the agriculture community. Now the commercial side is the majority of their business and while they do do a few ranch weddings a year, the few they select are couples that are near and dear to them.
Thought Process Behind Finding Success with Clients
Natalie McFarland’s Work with Katie’s Businesses
“All of the work that I have, if you know me, I am not a … graphic design person so the comfort of saying, ‘Hey Natalie, rough idea - go for it!’ And she never fails me!”
“Whatever it is that we are building, we have to really understand who that company, that person, that brand as a person is, and who it is that they are talking to and what are their goals. I have said it a bunch of times, but I feel like that every company needs to be the ‘guy for the thing,’ and being the guy for the thing makes you identifiable and relatable and makes it easier to talk to for your customer,” says Natalie who likens the brand creation to creating the best friend.
First step is the planning session with the customer to understand who they are as a person, who they are as a company and what their goals are. One of Natalie’s favorite part of the process is the most important part of the process, which is getting to know you! Whether a few hours for building a logo, getting to know a person is the number one thing that they do.
From there, if they can have the creative control over the branding or the ad design, the team is a whole lot better than when they try to adapt somebody else’s idea. While certainly working in partnership, they encourage potential clients to let them get to know you and then see what they can come up with for you.
Cowgirl 911 and Natalie McFarland
Natalie created the Cowgirl 911 logo in a heartbeat after picking up her camera and following the wildfires in the pacific northwest. That ended up going into a Business Insider feature!
Oregon Jamboree and McFarland Productions
A Love of the Western Lifestyle
Natalie wasn’t born into the western lifestyle despite her father having agriculture background from farming in the dust bowl area but by the time Natalie came around, they were living in California. Her first real exposure was her cousin’s who had horses and rodeo’d and, at the age of nine, the family moved to a ranch in southern Oregon.
In southern Oregon, Natalie got to ranch, rodeo, and ride horses! Young Natalie was enamored with the western lifestyle and in love with the cowboy style.
“I don't think you get to call yourself a cowboy overnight, so I certainly spent a lot of time learning the culture and getting good with horses and trying to get handy,” says Natalie with a laugh about her total immersion. “I didn’t necessarily grow up in it from the time I was born but I got there as quick as I could.”
Entrepreneurship
Advice to Someone Who Wants to be an Entrepreneur in the Western Industry
“Being an entrepreneur is a cool thing because you get to make something out of nothing,” says Natalie. “Every bit of McFarland Productions is blood, sweat and tears - there was no luck involved! It was all hard work!”
You do not just stumble upon success. You don’t just fall upon greatness, you create it.
Being an entrepreneur may sound really good and there might be a lot of flashy things on the internet about it but in translation it means; Do what it takes. That might mean working three straight months of 20 hour days. It might be that you’re working full time or more than full time for another company and you work around those hours.
“I went as far as to schedule my emails throughout the day so that I was running normal operating hours, even though I was working full time at another job,” says Natalie who sacrificed a lot. “Set your own schedule - yes, but set your own schedule might mean you’re doing a hundred hours this week.”
The reality is that there is more people that depend on you, including yourself, and the responsibility of all of that relies on you. Going to a job every day is very hard work but in a very different way. As an entrepreneur, you have to get up and do it, otherwise it’s not going to happen. Being an entrepreneur is a fabulous thing, but it’s not all roses.
“Nobody talked to me about all the ‘No’s,’” says Katie, who references the struggles of waking every morning full of energy and enthusiasm, you give the pitches, and over 70% say no. Then you cry yourself to sleep and you wake up the next morning full of energy and excitement. “It gets easier, you just have to work those muscles… you have to get your body conditioned to say things.”
As an entrepreneur, you’re not just doing the one thing you enjoyed, you’re now the head of marketing, head of communications, digital, payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and the janitor amongst other things.
Entrepreneur Balance
Asheley Kendall, McFarland Production’s Team and professional photographer.
“I joke with my team that they let me shower, but it’s not actually a joke,” Natalie says with a joke. “When you do it alone, there’s a lot of things you run out of time for.”
“I can’t imagine not having my team,” says Natalie. That team may shift and that’s just the nature of business and life, but Natalie can’t brag enough about her team. Natalie’s team has a photographer/videographer/social media manager/graphic designer/creative, administrative/accounting/director of operations, plus contract workers. If you want to keep growing, Natalie says that your team will be your number one asset.
Ashley Kendall
When it comes to hiring, Natalie looks for good people that are going to fit personality wise with the other team players and that they know the industry first. The emphasis is that everything else is mechanical and Natalie can teach you to run the camera, social media, graphics, etc. but you can’t teach someone to love agriculture.
“You’re in the wrong place if you don’t love agriculture because it’s literally our mission statement, it’s everything we exist for and I have dedicated my entire life to the promotion of agriculture. If you don’t have a love for that or some part of that, I can’t teach you that,” says Natalie.
Managing a Remote Team
“Oh that’s an adventure!” Says Natalie with a laugh, “We rely heavily on technology.” From digital ways to do invoicing and contracting, they can coordinate across their team in different areas. The biggest thing is being able to talk to each other every day and knowing each other well enough that they could pick up the phone and change.
Even if they had an office that people worked in, Natalie spends more than half of her time on the road. McFarland Productions is working remotely as a part of the nature of the job that they do. A former project manager for an engineering company, Natalie is a self-proclaimed nerd over project management tools and whether her team hates or loves that is up for discussion. Being able to understand where the team is at and a thorough understanding of where they are and where they are going, these goals are key to the success of McFarland Productions.
Annually the entire team and some contractors go through a planning meeting. In that meeting they set goals both financially, as well as hiring goals, skill-based goals, educating goals, etc. These company incentivized goals aren’t the only thing, they also include incentivized goals for each worker and they work together to grow and build.
Katie Connor, McFarland Production’s Team
“If you as a team can work towards a goal together, that is the key to being a successful team. Because if you can work on the same goal in the same direction, and everyone is pulling the same way, we are stronger that way and you can celebrate when you get there,” says Natalie. “Taking the time to really celebrate those achievements, especially if they are strategic goals for the company or for the person.”
Stephanie Furlong, McFarland Production’s Team
As for team and working remotely, having goals that you can work on together is the number one thing, but having the technology to support you is also important.