Friday, March 29, 2024

The missing socks

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New Zealand is home to an extraordinary number of entrepreneurs changing the world, making life easier and pushing the boundaries. In this series we meet dairy women who, along with being top-notch farmers, are entrepreneurs and business owners. They share the triumphs and challenges of starting and running a business and a farm. Cheyenne Nicholson caught up with Eva Botting.
Reading Time: 4 minutes

As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. 

And it was Phillip Botting’s need for new socks at Christmas 2018 and his wife Eva’s willingness to take the plunge into the business world that led to the creation of The Sock Agent. 

“Phil has an underwear subscription and I joked he should get a sock subscription. He just looked at me and said ‘Well, why don’t you just do it’. I knew nothing about retail or how to set it up so I laughed it off at first but he was the one who encouraged me to get it started and made me eat my words.” 

Phillip, 28, and Eva, 27, have been married since they were 19 and now have three children – Noah, Jackson and Mila. 

They began their dairying careers shortly after marrying, having dabbled in a few relief milking jobs before taking a huge leap and moving to the West Coast for a job on a Landcorp farm. 

With no family nearby and four-day-old Noah in tow Eva looks back now and realises it was a bit of a crazy move but is just one example of their willingness to take chances and try something new.

In subsequent years they took on various manager roles before landing their first contract milking position on John and Jane Martelli’s farm at Reporoa. Being young and wanting to get their first shot at contract milking right they made many mistakes in their first year by simply wanting to do everything themselves.

“We’re both control freaks at times and we weren’t good at letting staff do their jobs and maybe mucking up,” Eva says. 

“I guess we thought by doing it ourselves we’d save ourselves work but, looking back, we should’ve handed more over to our staff. I don’t think we’ve ever been so emotionally and physically exhausted than we were that year.

“It took a good year to recover from that fully. It was a real struggle and we had times where we thought why we are doing this, we have no family nearby to help, we’re tired all the time and it felt like everything was going wrong.”

They started delegating, handed bookwork over to an accountant and worked closely with the farm owners to make their second season a winner. When they discovered Eva was pregnant with their third child Mila during their final season they decided they needed to go to a farm where it didn’t take both of them to be there if something went wrong.

“It really kicked in that we didn’t have the balance when Noah had a triathlon at school and he’d forgotten how to ride a bike. We felt like terrible parents. We were working too much on the farm and not spending enough time with the kids.”

They are now contract milkers for Paul and Chris Mckenzie at Matamata. The system five farm produces 235,000kg MS and peak milks 400 cows.

When she decided to run with the idea of a sock subscription company Eva had no idea where to start and found herself facing similar challenges to their first season as contract milkers. 

“Phil has his own side hustles with his cars and other ideas in the works so I really liked the idea of having my own wee business that could support our family and also do something to help farmers even in a small way. 

“Farmers have largely been left behind in the world of convenience shopping. Socks are just one of those things you always need. 

“I feel like as farmers we have so many things on the go all the time and sometimes it’s nice to know that even one small thing is taken care of. And we all like to get a little something in the mail too.”

After speaking to friends who had set up businesses she set to making lists of what she’d need and the steps she needed to take to turn her idea into a proper business. She started making phone calls trying to find a stockist. 

“I wanted the socks to be Kiwi made and a brand people trusted. I was turned down a lot because I wasn’t going to meet minimum spending and I honestly thought the whole thing wouldn’t work out but Phil was really supportive and knew it would take just one yes to get things moving.”

Former Norsewear general manager Steve Culevski heard Eva’s pitch and immediately gave her the yes she needed. 

With a supplier locked in she worked through her to-do list building and setting up her website, figuring out payment and banking and fine tuning the details of what the subscription would look like.

“Having a business in the form of being contract milkers I knew a little about what was involved so I wasn’t going into it completely green but things like the web development were a challenge and, in hindsight, I made similar mistakes to our first contract milking job, 

“I just wanted to do it all on my own. I was trying to do all of this in the middle of autumn calving as well.

“I remember one day driving the kids to school. Mila was in the back crying and I was tired. I was physically tired from the farm, I was mentally tired from setting up a new business and I thought to myself what am I even doing this for? I had that feeling like I couldn’t breathe again. 

“It’s times like that where Phil is really great. I couldn’t have done any of this without him. 

“I tend to get tunnel vision and focus only on the end product. He got me to focus on the small steps and take each of those steps as small wins.“

After five months of planning, setting up, overcoming unexpected issues like a change in management of her supplier, The Sock Agent launched last June. 

Since then subscription numbers have grown steadily, the company is involved in a very successful project with Will to Live and the business is holding its own. 

While there are some improvements she would like to make on the website and marketing front Eva has regular online sales, is making moves towards recyclable packaging and has mapped out other products she’d like to offer. 

“The reception from customers has been great. It might just be a pair of socks but it’s one less thing for farmers to worry about. I like to leave a wee note in the package as well to add a personal touch. I really think as humans we need more of that.

“We’re at a stage now with the farm and the business that we can take holidays and be more involved with the kids’ activities and we love it. It’s not all roses, farming never is, but on the whole I’m proud of how far we have come.”

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