History of the Breeders Directory and Why It’s Important Now
History
The Breeders Directory was created circa 2007 when I saw a need at the time for a comprehensive directory that included llama breeders from as many states as possible. When I first became interested in llamas, there was a simple site that listed farms like this, but it became defunct. That site was instrumental in finding where llamas farms were around me at the time. It contained contact information, farm description, and maybe a website link to more information about their farm.
In 2003, I started a site called “LlamaSalesList.Com”, which many of you will recall. I ran this site until ~2011, and now it is a part of “LivestockCity”, a site that is currently in beta mode. Our mission was to help llama farmers sell their llamas through classified ads, online auctions, and advertising on our website. We were a pretty popular website during that time. Our first online auction crashed at the end because the traffic had been so much that the host server was overwhelmed! Also in 2003, the llama industry had been booming, with some llamas fetching $20,000–$30,000 each for certain llama types and bloodlines. There were many large herds at the time too. But then one of the largest, Feathers & Friends Farm from Colorado, dispersed their 400 llamas over the course of a weekend and flooded the llama market. It was a nationally attended event, and a great opportunity to meet some llama farmers in person. It was a fun event, but I had not thought about the effect this sale would have on the llama industry. The very next auction from the Llama Futurity Association that followed showed the effects — lower average sale prices compared to other auctions prior to the Feathers & Friends sale. Prices were still good, but not as good as they had been and on a downward trend in the months following.
I continued helping llama farms sell their llamas through LlamaSalesList, but I knew the market was changing. Moreover, other farms with large herds also began dispersing, flooding the market even more. Big name farms were retiring and dispersing almost like dominos. I knew how important their support was for the llama industry, and now it was going away. How would the llama market not only survive but keep growing?
Around 2007 I began offering the Breeders Directory and created a website called “LlamaBreeder.Com.” It would serve two main purposes: 1) Help people interested in llamas find farms to visit 2) Help farms own websites be found easier in search engines like Google and drive traffic traffic to their website. In addition to the LlamaBreeder website, I wanted to create another site to be a companion to LlamaBreeder, so I created a llama information site called “LlamaSeeker.Com.” The purpose of LlamaSeeker is to provide some basic information that people who are considering llamas often wonder. The information is basic, so if people want more information, they can request more information through a form. This form is submitted to us. I figured the combination of these two sites could help grow the llama industry.
In the initial offering of the directory, we asked for $60 per farm/year to join, and this helped cover the costs of mailing information packets out to people requesting more information and some advertising we took out in Acreage Magazine. The llama information packet included brochures from ILR, ALSA, and other llama organizations. In addition, the farms in the directory were given the contact information of the people inquiring, especially in their state (or any state upon request), to follow up with providing information or inviting to their farm for a tour.
After several years, the site went dormant, became outdated, but still traffic was coming to it, and people inquired. The problem was that farms were not renewing, so it became hard to be inspired to keep running the site.
Current Status
Recently I began to resurrect LlamaBreeder with a fresh design and begin offering the directory service again. LlamaSeeker had also been refreshed a few years ago and traffic is good to the site with people inquiring for information about llamas. I dropped the membership annual renewal to just $35, which is hard to beat for the benefits of driving traffic to the farms’ websites and getting leads. But because of membership dues is almost half of what it was, it is no longer cost effective to mail out llama information packets.
How It Works
Instead of mailing out information packets. we are relying on the farms in the directory to contact and provide information to the people inquiring for llama information. All the leads acquired go into a spreadsheet and are available to directory members upon request. So when an inquiry comes in from PA, for example, the contact is emailed by us, with a PA farm (or farms if more than one in PA) are CC’d on the email. The introduction is made in that email, and it is up the farm(s) to contact the person. What happens when someone inquires from a state with no farms in the directory? When that happens, I reply to the person inquiring and CC’d a farm from that state anyway and let them have the lead. I just ask that they consider joining the directory. If they don’t join, I am happy if they at least follow up with the lead and/or I might contact another (nonmember) farm from that state with the same lead, etc. until I find a farm that wants to join to represent their state.
Current Goals
We are getting inquiries regularly through LlamaSeeker, but we do not always have a farm to refer to them based on our directory. In 2020, my goal is to change this and have at least one farm in every state. We have recently had people inquire for Maine, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, and nearly all states over the past 5 years. Hopefully by the end of 2020, we will have all 50 states represented in the directory.
Drop me a line if you would like to hear more about this project, interested in joining, or helping. Use the contact form at http://llamabreeder.com/contactus.html to contact me.
