Locally made podcast climbs charts, boosts farm business

WASHINGTON — A locally made podcast recorded by a father and son from the loft of a repurposed barn is doing numbers on national download rankings.

Co-hosts Tork and Sawyer Whisler said their weekly show, Barn Talk, reached the mid-30s on Spotify’s daily rankings of its 50 most downloaded business podcasts in mid-April. It’s not the first time they’ve graced what Spotify calls “The Podcast Charts,” although the producers said they weren’t sure how many times they’d made the list.

The co-hosts credited their latest spike of listeners to a much-anticipated episode about tariffs, although the show’s path to renown was years in the making.

Weekly show helps farm’s margins

The first episode of Barn Talk released on Spotify in April of 2021, but the Whislers said they only started getting a positive return on the show sometime last year. It was a welcome surprise.

“I don’t know how long we went before we had anybody supporting us financially,” Tork Whisler said. “We were just blessed enough that, with our schedules of choring pigs and farming, we could work it in to do it. And we didn’t have to have a return right away, we felt like the return would come if we did a good job, and we feel like it has.”

Today, the podcast has ballooned in popularity, with around 60,000 weekly views or downloads across platforms.

It has considerably better margins than the farm itself, bringing in a total of six figures a year in top-line revenue for about 10 hours of work a week, some of which is split with part-time editors and other family members.

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With those returns, the show gave This’ll Do Farm a chance to diversify. Just as many producers add to their operations with new commodities or new enterprises, Barn Talk branched the Whisler family into a new market, meeting consumer demand and balancing their farm’s risk.

“This is really (Sawyer’s) contribution,” Tork said. “What I added to the farm, that allowed me to be here, was I built all these contract finishing barns and we raised pigs. Sawyer didn’t have that opportunity, the margins are terrible.”

Sawyer Whisler said he didn’t see another option, at least on his family’s farm, to keep the operation profitable for another generation as input costs continue to rise. The podcast has established a cash flow that now helps absorb weather - and market-related disruptions to the livestock and grain business.

“If we would have never done social media, I would probably have to go work another job, that’s the reality of it,” he said. “It’s ‘Get big or die,’ as a farm, or find a way to control your destiny ... whether that’s ag tourism, whether that’s building a brand, whether that’s going direct-to-consumer, whatever it is. Small farmers are going to have to find a way to either get big, or create their own market.”

Podcast had humble roots

It’s difficult to describe exactly what Barn Talk is.

At some points in every episode, it’s effectively a newscast, with discussions on market trends and current events, and interviews with public officials like former Presidential Candidate Ron DeSantis or current Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig.

At others, it fits more neatly into Spotify’s business category, featuring input from successful entrepreneurs, or candid conversations about the market for everything from corn to cryptocurrency. Sometimes, it’s closer to a talk show, with hosts and guests swapping anecdotes, advice and political commentary.

Once in a while, it becomes an informal whiskey connoisseur’s product review, a segment called a “Whiskey Minute” in the show’s parlance.

“It’s what we’re thinking about today, or what we were thinking about last night, that makes the episode today,” Tork Whisler said. “A lot of people that are in podcasts, they put themselves in a genre and that’s all they talk about, and we just don’t do that.”

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Tork Whisler said he hoped to emulate groups of older folks he saw going into town as a kid, who could be found discussing anything under the sun in complete candor.

“They were always in there, sitting around, having a cup of coffee or eating peanuts, and they’re all in there, discussing the state of the union; talking about what’s going on in the culture, what’s going on in town, all very opinionated fellas,” he said. “Today, we’ve all kind of siloed ourselves. There is the coffee shops, but I don’t feel like people have that sense of community. So Barn Talk was, to me, like having those conversations that you would just have in the feed store.”

For Sawyer Whisler — who pitched the show to his father back in ‘21 — it had a bigger role to play. The family’s hog farm, called “This’ll Do Farm,“ already had a respectable presence on YouTube, with videos of everyday processes like harvests, manure spreading and mechanical mishaps. But its format was limited to roughly 15-minute video clips, and focused on the farm’s operations, not its people.

While he wasn’t sure it would ever make money, Sawyer said the podcast aimed to go one step further, showing audiences the human element behind the camera, not confined to their fieldwork or hog farmer’s coveralls.

“I just felt like we had a unique opportunity to show people ... who we were outside of farming,” he said. “We’re more than just farmers, and we felt like, ‘Man, if we could do a podcast and just talk about what we love to talk about, we’ll see what happens’ ... I don’t know if we really had expectations, I just felt like this is what we need to do.”

Makers say ‘authenticity’ is key

Starting a podcast is astoundingly easy. Anyone with a computer and a functional microphone can set up a free account with any number of hosting websites, then upload virtually anything and, in theory, monetize it with advertisements.

Getting anyone to listen, however, is another story.

Creators must compete with thousands of celebrities, companies and influencers for audiences’ attention. With the widespread use of smartphones, listeners aren’t limited by the size of their radio antenna or their proximity to broadcasters, only by what they can find and want to listen to.

Barn Talk’s co-hosts said their secret to success was their authenticity. Sawyer Whisler said it was a hot commodity in today’s entertainment market, and helped Barn Talk cut through the noise.

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“I would just say people are sick and tired of fake celebrity culture, and they don’t trust anything,” Sawyer Whisler said. “Who they trust is really people doing real s***. You’re seeing that across social media ... people are gravitating toward real people, doing real things, making real content, talking about real things.”

That mindset comes with a cost, at times. The Whislers said they frequently had to turn down advertisers who wanted to know interview questions and conversation outlines in advance, a request that doesn’t jive with the off-script, off-the-cuff flow of the podcast. The pair also turns down advertising offers from brands can’t personally vouch for, another major limitation on their revenue.

“If you throw away what makes your show, ‘your show,’ people are going to pick up on it,” Sawyer said. “People’s BS meter, when they pick up on who’s a sellout, or an ad or whatever, it’s so high. You are short-term thinking if you’re going to sell out for a quick check.”

“Barn Talk” is named for its recording studio, in the loft of a long out-of-use barn on the Whislers’ family farm, renovated somewhat with better insulation and more electrical outlets.

The co-hosts record their audio on high-end, several-hundred-dollar, stereo microphones, mounted on mic stands held in place by old lifting weights, with sound dampening from small hay bales placed in a few corners.

The latest episode can be viewed on YouTube in crisp 4k video, showing the hosts seated in tasteful leather chairs with studio-grade lighting, contrasting with their outfits of ball caps and T-shirts, against the backdrop of a barn’s interior rafters. A wide selection of top-shelf whiskey lines most of the studio’s southern wall, arranged behind a counter of unfinished wood.

It’s a vibe that matches Barn Talk’s brand, creating a show that promises quality for listeners, without covering the hosts’ personality, their livelihood, or their well established “this’ll do” attitude.

“Throughout America, there is this nostalgia for simplicity,” Tork Whisler said. “People value what regular people think, and people that work regular jobs. That’s part of the reason for the success of this.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com