Barn Talk - Farming's Future: Clayton Atlas' Role in Agricultural Transformation

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

Welcome to Barn Talk! In this episode, we chat with Clayton from Atlas Media Solutions, who shares his journey of turning his passion for media into a mission to support family farming operations. Clayton highlights perseverance and teamwork in overcoming agricultural challenges and offers advice to young hopefuls in the field. He recounts his path from media burnout to founding a dedicated agriculture media company, despite financial risks. We discuss his goals to correct public misconceptions about food origins and his focus on creating authentic agricultural content. Clayton also emphasizes sustainable practices, migrant labor's significance, and fostering employee well-being and loyalty. Join us for an inspiring conversation on agriculture, entrepreneurship, and media with Clayton. This episode is a must-listen for anyone passionate about these topics! Use code BARNTALK for 10% OFF your next order https://farmergrade.com SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR   SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c  SUBSCRIBE TO BARN TALK CLIPS ➱ https://bit.ly/3BlZnqq   LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY  ITUNES ➱ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barn-talk/id1574395049 Follow Behind The Scenes👇🏻 ● This’ll Do Farm Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/30KPBNk   ● Barn Talk TikTok ➱ https://bit.ly/3qciekS   ● Sawyer’s Instagram  ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4   ● Tork’s Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS    00:00 Farmer promotes agriculture through positive documentaries. 06:51 Reworking strategy, planning dedicated effort for project. 11:55 Targeting 100M people via social media marketing. 18:33 Practical business strategies for growth and implementation. 21:43 Grew up independent in an expensive ski town. 29:12 Farming experience changed misconceptions about agricultural practices. 33:08 Dreamt of media career; pursued different path. 39:56 Struggled with the bank for an employee's credit line. 47:00 Social media acceptance has significantly improved now. 50:41 Focus on online impact, generational wealth shift. 56:13 Consumers can detect insincere marketing, affecting ads. 59:28 Authenticity prioritized over profit; intentional mission focus. 01:06:27 Leveraging nearby Mexico's young workforce demographics. 01:12:01 Certified platform prioritizes long-term investments and transparency. 01:14:58 Employees' salary: predictable costs, fosters dedication, flexibility. 01:20:59 Agriculture's future: corporate farms vs. niche communities. 01:28:46 Consumers lack agricultural knowledge; prefer diverse meat options. 01:32:32 Consumers seeking food transparency and authenticity online. 01:35:44 Strive to solve agriculture's complex problems humbly. 01:40:47 Work hard, find a patient farmer, gain experience. ------------------------------- ⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠  The Information discussed and shared on Barn Talk is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or success for any particular purpose. The Information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice. The Information on this podcast and provided from or t... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One day, you're negotiating with suppliers. The next, you're installing a shelf in the back room. Running a business means moving in many directions all the time. TD's new small business banking accounts are built for how your business moves. It's how we're making banking more human. All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name. Welcome to Barn Talk.

What happens at the barn? Stays in the barn, but not today. we're going to let it all out for you guys today is going to be a guest episode we got a really cool guest coming on that uh does a lot of awesome stuff in the agricultural industry a lot of great stuff for farmers uh and we're going to touch on all the things that he's up to but before we do you guys know the drill share the show with the people that you know the more that you guys do that the more the show grows the more people we can reach the more episodes we can make it's kind of the ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show another thing you can do that

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that are loyal listeners and watchers of Barn Talk. We got holiday gift boxes coming up. So if you're somebody that owns a business and you want to give your employee something awesome, you want to give them some meat for Christmas. We will have that feature available coming very soon. Or if you're just a person, you want to get your loved ones, a box of meat for the holidays, that we have that for you too. So I just want to put that bug in your guys' ears here so you can kind of plan for it. We do have a rewards program now on Farmergrade where you earn points for spending money. So the more money you spend, the more orders you have, you earn points and you can redeem those points for money off. And then if you spend enough money, there's tears of kind of you unlock as you spend more money.

Tears of joy. Tears of joy. Levels. Unlocks some features for you that gives you perks to being a loyal customer of Farmergrade because we want to incentivize loyalty. Harvest is in full swing for us. For us. Yesterday we did beans over at David's. We tried corn over here on.

Monday. Too wet. Just pick the headlands off. Yeah, it's been good so far. Uh, you know, these first couple days, the joy is high. You know, it brings you back to being like, oh, yeah, I love this. I enjoy this. But there's going to be a point in there where it's going to be like, oh, shit, this is starting to be a grind. Yeah. Let's just get done with this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, no, it's, it's been real, real fun, real, real good. Um, and if you're interested at all of seeing our harvest trial and airs and all the good highlights and low lights or low moments. You can head over to our This'll Do Farm YouTube channel, and we kind of just vlog and document our day-to-day life as farmers and harvest is included in that.

So you can see Tork and I being a dumbass, probably leaving a wagon, leaving a wagon door open from time to time and spilling corn on the ground. How you got to bring that out? Well, I haven't done that this year. Nope, not yet. No. I'll probably be the one to do it. here now. Knock on wood. All right. Well, our guest today is a kind of a pioneer in the ag media space.

He does a lot of great things for the agricultural industry. He does a lot of different media stuff, content stuff for farmers and agricultural businesses and stuff like that. He really is passionate about agriculture and he doesn't really come from it, which is awesome. Having people that don't come from agriculture, get passionate about agriculture, and make a difference, I think is really, really key for our future as an industry. And I'm super excited to have a conversation with him today. Something that where I first saw this guy was actually on social media. There was a clip of him being on a podcast. And, you know, his, he was saying they were talking about documentaries and how there's so many bad documentaries out there bashing agriculture. And he said on there, you know,

my goal is if all those people are going to be in that corner bashing agriculture, I want to counter that and make documentaries promoting agriculture, because a lot of those documentaries, as we all know, don't actually get to the nitty-gritty facts all the time. They just like to touch on hot points that sound good, but might not always be the full story. And I just could really appreciate that as a farmer. So I'm super happy that we can get them on the show,

and I'm hyped to get it going. one. So without further ado, let's get to it. Clayton Lynn, we're live. So welcome to Barn Talk. Thanks for coming down, man. I've been following along for quite a few years now. Yeah. Well, I'm going to say, I said it in the intro, you know, where I first saw you was, I think you were doing a podcast. It wasn't Farm for Profit. It was a different one, but it was, I think this clip went pretty viral. It was you talking about how, you know, there's so many documentaries, you know, pushing against ag and bashing our industry. And your mission is. like you want to you want to counteract that you want to combat that and if they're going to make

shitty documentaries about agriculture i'm going to make documentaries about promoting agriculture and actually showing the other side of the story because there's always documentaries it seems like there's always extreme pullers on whoever whatever their narrative is and the truth usually lies in the middle just like everything but that clip really really made me want to get you on the podcast so i'm finally glad we got you down here and we'll chop it up Well, I'm psyched about that. I mean, there's been, it's probably been six or seven months since I put that clip up. We're talking about it. And so it's been an absolute wild year. The principal's still running the same. We actually were, we were working on two documentaries. It's probably starting February, Marchish. And one, we were partnering with someone else and we're still kind of waiting on what that looks like. And then the other one, we just, we went from, you know, a team of three to a team of seven and now eight. And so it's been, I want to say it's been on the back burner. It's been a, hey, if we're going to do this, let's scale back. Not even scale back.

Let's slow down and do it, right? So just an update on all that. We're still working on it. It's just a matter of what we. I wanted it to be done in January. And now we're like, all right, if we're going to do this,

let's put like, could we put a full quarter of one person's work into this? Like, could I pay for one of my employees to spend a whole quarter working on this? And so we're kind of trying to rework that right now of like, hey, if we're going to do this, let's put a lot of energy.

Because we were putting energy behind it before, but it was like always like, oh, we have a half a day here. or another day here, you know, but now we're kind of sitting here looking, okay, if we want to do this, could we do this with like, could we shoot super hard for a few weeks and then chop something up? Could we, you know, we wanted to do a full growing season? I mean, we still want to do that, but it's so hard to like, all right, I have a person here, I have a person here.

You know, we shoot. We have people from on the West Coast on our team all the way to Oklahoma and Texas, you know, and us and Iowa. So we're trying to figure out, like, how can we do this efficiently? But also, like, you know, we want to produce something we're proud of, not just like, do it with our spare time. And so that's our Q1 project of next year. It's a it's a Q4 goal right now. So we're currently September to December. So we're looking at okay, let's develop our game plan. Let's find our story. Let's find our people. And let's set up a schedule for how we're actually

going to produce this whole thing. And then Q1 next year we're going to plan on into moving into like, okay, this person's going to be here. This person's going to be here. And hopefully we can get a couple of our people on set with someone. So all that has changed dramatically. probably since you last saw that clip, but it's still, the principle is still fundamentally the same of, hey, you know, let's create something that's actually going to accomplish our mission, which our mission is like serve agriculture at a high level by solving its most pressing issues.

And currently the most pressing issue I feel like we need to solve is no one knows where their food comes from. We have so many people who love to disbassage industry without knowing anything about it. So what can we do as an industry to tangibly solve that? Because people love to complain about that problem all day long. long, like, no, and no one knows where their food comes from. Oh, my gosh. Like, we have it so hard as farmers. And I'm like, okay. So what are we going to do about it? Like, we can sit, we can see here all day and complain about how Joe Schmo in California doesn't know anything about

pork producers in Iowa and how, you know, the whole Prop 12 thing or whatever, you know, all that. You know, we could, we could sit here all day and complain about that, which is what we've been doing for several decades now as an industry. Or, hear me out, guys, let's find a tangible solution to the problem. And I'm not saying I have all the answers because I don't. And you guys know this as well. It's like it's going to take a multitude of people saying, well, that's a problem. Let's do something about it. And you guys have also realized as we have like, oh man, social media, YouTube, podcasts can

connect you with millions of people around the country. Like why aren't we leveraging that to solve this pressing issue? And so that's how I view it is like, okay, well, we, easiest way for me to start that. Okay, start a marketing company because you can generate revenue, generate profit, which allows me to then dedicate some of that profit back into things that more or less don't provide. Like there's no ROI directly in creating a documentary for me or my business. But we have a problem. It needs to be solved.

And at the end of the day, it is good marketing and PR for us. By the end of day, it's, hey, even if it makes a small indent, it makes enough of an indent that, hey, maybe next time it'll be bigger. Or the time after that will be bigger. And so that's kind of the approach we've taken is like, all right, let's do it. but let's do it to the best of our ability rather than in our spare time. So we kind of reworked how that's going to look in the future. But it's something that like when we can pull it off, I'm like, I'm so stoked for. Yeah.

Yeah. So what is your company called for people that don't know? And you kind of explain the mission, but like, what do you do when you're not thinking about producing documentaries? Yeah. So our company is called Atlas Media Solutions. that's the official LLC name. But I would call us actually Atlas Ag Media Solutions.

And we're trying to, Atlas Ag, we just call it Atlas usually, just because it's like as a company, it's easier just to refer to the entity as Atlas. But, you know, that's like the whole thing we do. We are a media marketing company for ag businesses because I realize now that I'm a few years into this. There are other companies that do it, but there's a pretty big gap once again between,

okay, hey, let's print a bunch of newspaper ads and, hey, let's produce some social. media marketing material and there's all this territory in between that most other marketing companies in this industry are still figuring out a little bit so we actually get a ton of work from other marketing agencies because they realize oh we need to do more video we need you do more photo we don't have anybody to do that yeah like we got to get on social media and do this and so they call us saying hey that's kind of what you guys do right and you know we do other things

as well but like our main bread and butter is social media because what's the easiest way to reach your customers these days social media and what is the easiest way to have a genuine connection with someone. I mean, it's sad to say, social media these days, you know. And I'll give credit to those other marketing agencies of print is still big in the ag industry. Like most people, the average age of someone in these industries, 55. People like to read magazines. They like to read newspapers. So that is all fine and dandy. But we have this next generation of farmers and ranchers coming up through the industry and where are they going to be searching for stuff in three to four years when they take over the operation? TikTok, Instagram, maybe Facebook,

maybe Twitter, maybe even LinkedIn. Who knows? So that's kind of the premise of our company. So we've got seven people working, doing 90% photo video, and then we do a little bit of graphics and web design when it comes in and things like that. But I'd say 95% of it is social media. And our goal this year was like,

hey, could we reach 100 million people across us and our clients on social media for the sake of agriculture? It's like, okay, tangible way for us to accomplish our mission, gives us incentive for as a team to do our best job possible. Hopefully it's helping our clients get the best return on their dollars spent. And on top of that, the chances that someone in that 100 million people

is outside the ag bubble is quite high. So like, okay, it's a step in the right direction. It's not the answer, but it's a step. Who knows who could see that and say, oh, man, that's kind of cool. I never thought a combine would be something I would want to see. I don't even know what this machine is, but it looked really cool because that video is really pretty.

It's that, you know, the execution of something tangible that might actually make an impact in some Californian's life or some city, city slickers life. You know, you have no idea who you're going to reach when you do stuff like that. I'm sure you guys see that all the time on your guys' stuff. Like, you'll get comments from people or messages saying, I had no idea it was going on out on this hog farm in Iowa. But you guys showed it to me and it was super cool. And now I want to buy pork from you or, you know, I want to follow along. I want to learn more. you know, it's that little cycle.

So that's kind of like the very high level, like this is what we do every day. I mean, most of my job is spent in the office these days, looking at spreadsheets, sitting in meetings, sending emails. You know, I do some of the photo video stuff too. I probably go out on one shoot a month, but, you know, 90% of it's running the business and not glamorous. I don't post a lot of it.

I posted on my social media yesterday saying, hey, just so everyone knows, I spend most of my time sitting at this desk these days. You see all the pretty stuff and fun stuff that we get to do on social media, but like this is the work that I got to do right now to make sure that we can accomplish the mission we're setting out to accomplish. So somebody's got to make sure the light bill gets paid if I wrote a lot of checks yesterday. Yeah. There was a point in there. You talked about how your

mission is a is a company or just like this year you wanted to reach 100 million people across your social and your clients. How important like I go back and forth on this as somebody that owns a small business too. Like what do you feel like having a goal or a, like an annual goal or a five year goal or a five year plan focused on a different metric than money is like better than focusing on money? Because I feel like there's a lot of companies out there that, oh, we got to hit a million in revenue. We got to hit 500,000 in revenue. And your team becomes almost money hungry. And you lose sight of what really matters. And I feel like what I tell myself anyway is like, you know, I think the money will come if we just focus on doing the right thing. Is that kind of what you've found

too? So it's funny you ask that. So probably since June, since we became kind of this multi-person organization and we continue to add on more people every single month, it seems. Like it's like, okay, now the what we believe and why we do what we do is so much more important than it was when it was just me because when I'm the one working every day and doing 80% of the work, you know, it's like, okay, well, I know why I'm doing this. I know what I'm doing. But now we're at the point where we've got to boil that down into, hey, what do I need to communicate to our team that's going to propel this vision and mission forward? Because I can tell, I can tell our team is like, yeah, I'd like to do a few million revenue next year. That would be really cool. You know, but to them,

like, you know, if they, you know, some of them don't have a ton of farm background. Most of them have a little, but not a lot, you know, so how do I convey to my team that what we do every day is important because if I just tell them yeah I want to make a couple million next year they're like well my boss just wants us to make a bunch of money so he can go on vacation you know like as as the owner of the business like that's how it would come off as and so I've been for the past four-ish months now really just reading a ton of books listening to a ton of podcasts is what does it look like to you know have core values set a vision set targets set things like that that aren't just you know revenue is a part of that you can't forget that, but you have to find something that supersedes that. And so we actually

just sat down about two weeks ago and went over our core values as a business. We're officially starting to establish those. You know, there are things that are going to matter as we hire going forward. And one of the ones that we put down, I think it's like number three is people, principal, profit. So you got your people first. So taking care of our customers, taking care of our employees, and more importantly, because we serve agriculture are, you know, our farmers and ranchers. One of our other core values is our customers, customers come first. So we serve ag businesses. So we work with a lot of big ag businesses that serve farmers and ranchers.

Farmers and ranchers are more important than the ag businesses we serve. And if we think the company we work with is not serving those people's best interests, we will not work with this company. Like we say no to companies all the time because we are like, I don't think you have the farmer's best interest at heart. So we are not going to work with you because there's some other marketing company that'll take your money and they'll go. buy a boat. That's not why we're here to do. I'm here to make sure that farmers and ranchers voices are heard, they're seen, and they're taken care of. And if that company doesn't believe in that, then that company can get out the door because that's not what we're here to do. Making a purpose to make money does not make a culture. And if you don't have a culture,

you won't have a company very long. I mean, that's, it is, I've had the pleasure to work some places where we had an incredible culture and I watched it change and then I've worked at other places that didn't have a culture and it made it really difficult. So getting that established early is you're on the right road. You're on the right road. I'm kind of still so early and I don't really have a full-time team. So it's like just kind of grinding right now. But like, you know, when you get to that point of having people that are in the office every day, and I think then I got to really make that transition. Yeah, this is a book you should write down.

I would recommend anyone who goes from one to two people even. Like the book, people always told me like, oh, don't read it until you got five plus people working for you. And I wish I had read this book. It's called Traction by, you read it? I've heard of it. I have not read it. By Gino Wickman.

There's a lot of business books out there that will say, oh, do this, do this. And it's like, well, they're coming from the perspective of, oh, I've been running a multi-million dollar business for five, seven, 10, 12 years now. So they're coming from this very high level and they've forgotten what it's like to go from one to two to three to four people. This book, Traction, you know, it takes a little bit of time to get to the point, but it gives

you very tangible tools of like, oh, here are things that you should implement with your team on a regular basis that will help you reach your goals and set your direction so you can start actually like solving the problems and moving forward. And it is, I wish I had read it two years ago because it would have at least. giving me a framework of like, okay, in this order, do a couple of these things to help you at least stop putting out fires all the time. Your job as a business owner should not be to just put out fires constantly. It's always going to happen. You have to live with it. But if you are constantly putting out fires, you're not running a healthy organization because your people do not know what

they're supposed to be doing and they have to always call you to put out their fires. Well, that doesn't get you anywhere because you can do that with a couple people. You can't do that with 10 people. You can't do that with 50 people. He can't do it with 100 people. So you have to start moving from the, this is me and my team to this is me and my team. And my job is to work with my team and coach my team and empower them. Yeah. Like, you know, I was able to take, you know, we started implementing this kind of beginning of summer. I was able to take a whole week off and go on vacation in July. And I sent one work email the entire week, which if anyone here runs a business listening, you know how hard that is to not be like to go on.

vacation for a week and not be worrying. I had to respond to one email. And the only reason I did because it was like seven o'clock at night and I was like it's like a two sentence email just to check in with a client. Like that was it. I was like, I don't need to forward this to someone's for else to. And it was it was one of the most like, okay, I love my job. I love working. But if you, you know, there's a difference between being a workaholic and working hard. Being a workaholic is incredibly unhealthy and working hard is one of the best virtues you can have as an employee. But you can't be a workaholic and work hard. There's a difference. Right.

So like it is, don't get me wrong. I still work like probably 50, 60 hours a week, but it's definitely changed the way I approach our problems and stuff. And it's changed the way we address our problems too. And it's just been like, dude, read that book. All right. He got me sold. I'm going to buy it and read it.

Well, hey. Gosh, dang. Let's back up a minute. So when, so what was your, like, what was your why? How long has Atlas been going? like when did you start and what was like what was your aha moment that you were like all right this is we're gonna i'm gonna because you don't you don't come from ag right yeah so just give us a little background back way up okay california let's just say california my childhood so i was born

in lake tahoe california beautiful area like you want to talk about the most spoiled rotten growing up at like we were like in in california what we consider middle class in iowa is like kind of on that lower and middle class. So we lived in a ski town. It's pretty expensive. Um, so I didn't, I'm not, I didn't grow up with a bunch of money living in a ski town. Like my mom ran her own house cleaning business. Uh, my parents were separated when I was younger. So my mom ran her own house cleaning business just to pay the bills, you know, while we were growing up. So like from like 11 on, she basically worked full time. We went to school. We did our thing. Um, and that kind of, I'll say that now. That created a lot of independence in my life that has led me to be able to,

you know, withstand some of the entrepreneurship and just the going out of your own mentality. I've always kind of had that of like, you know, if no one else is going to do it, then I'm going to go do it because well, growing up I had to do it. You know, I had one little brother and,

you know, my brother, I'll give a shout to him. He works for me. And he, you know, he's the same way. He just takes ownership.

He goes and does stuff. Like, if I ask him to do something, I mean, he'll work a 16 hour day and I'll never ask, you know, and he'll just go do it, you know,

um, anyways, grew up in California. When I was 16, I ended up moving to Montana for a few years. So I graduated early because I said, this whole high school thing is kind of, you know, I've learned everything I need to know.

So I went to a charter school there, you know. So it was four-day work week or four-day school week. Fridays was an independent study day, which I either went skiing or I worked. So I would do that and I realize, oh, this is, I've learned everything I need to know. And so California has a test that you can take to basically test out early.

So it's called the California high school proficiency exam. a year diploma and everything. So I was like, I was 16. I had two years of school left. I was like, I'm a thousand percent confident I could pass that test. So got to sign off from my principal and my mom's, you know, went and took the test. So I graduated December of 20, what I've been? I've been 2016, I think. So graduated then and moved to Montana. Boy, don't you wish you could have done that. I don't know. I don't know if I would have passed the test. You would have had to find somebody to take it. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't apply myself all too much in high school.

You know, and I would say that last semester I did like jack squat, but like I had, I was pretty good at math. So like math was the only one I was like, that's really the only thing they actually test you on in the high school. Like that's really the only thing to care about is can you do algebra? Like that's pretty much like social studies, geography doesn't really matter. None of that. It's can you do math?

So I was pretty, I had already done calculus at that point. So I was like, that was the easiest part for. flew through the test, did it in like 30 minutes when it was supposed to be like three hours. It was great that I was able to do that. And most other people finished at like 45 minutes. So it was, it's an incredibly easy test. So don't, don't feel bad. They moved up Montana.

I lived there for a few years. I worked for a Christian camp out there for a few years. They had horses. That's where I got my first, that's my first time I ever started working on fence, which I learned to do a lot more of later. So I've fixed miles of barbed wire fence. I've taken out miles of barbed wire fence.

It's one of the best character building things you can do is fix fence because it's the lowest. You are the lowest man on the totem pole when you're fixing fence. And that's okay. That's okay. It's good for you. Lived out there for four years. COVID hits 2020. Lost my job.

Lost my place of housing. I happened to be dating a girl who lived in Iowa because I worked with her brother out in Montana. And I was like, oh, well, I'll just move to Iowa, you know. And so I had also gotten some diesel mechanic experience working for an excavation company whenever I would go visit home. So I would just, if I went home for a few weeks, I would just go wrench. You know, it was by no means a proficient mechanic. But if you asked me to fix something, I could probably like sort of figure it out. So moved to Iowa.

The girl I was dating at the time, her cousin farmed. And so it was the middle of COVID. There's nowhere to work. And I was like, well, I know how to tear out fence. I know how to fix fence. I can fix stuff. I can go farm. I think I could probably go figure this out.

And so anyways, I went up and just did a couple days of work. He had a bunch of little small chemical pumps for just spraying and everything. and I basically just clean the carburetors on all of them. He's like, man, you're pretty good at that. And I was like, I mean, I just like, there's a couple bolts and everything. Fixing a carbure. Guys, if you're small engines having trouble, it's the carburetor. Just take it off, clean it.

Like, I've never not fixed a small engine that way. So, but yeah, like he, a couple days later, he just want to come work for me full time. I need some extra help. You know, my dad's getting a little older. You know, we also just have, you know, it's a farm. He had cows. He did row crop, hay, all that. So, you know, he's a very busy guy.

And so I was like, sure. and guys I cannot stress enough how little I knew about anything involving farming, the practices, the process, the tools I needed, all those things are things I just got like absolutely schooled on like every single day. It was like I basically realized I was just like a monkey that happened to be able to drive. Mostly. You know, so, you know, that just kind of like, I was like, okay, this is the only job there is to do right now. So I'm going to do it. And I really, I can say I really enjoyed it. There are a lot of hard days.

I did not have the best attitude every single day. But more often than not, I got to do something different every single day, which if you ask the guy I farmed for, what his favorite part about farming is, he would tell you that. It's like, I never do the same thing every single day, ever.

And I can look back and say, man, what freedom was there in like just doing something different every day? Yeah, it was a lot of hard work. You know, we have cows. Everything's a project all the time. You have any sort of animals, you're always working with the animals. The row crop is like, yeah, when we have time, we get it done.

But it's like the cows took up so much of our time. But like, you know, if it was in northeast Iowa and if you ever been up there, you know, start getting into those rolling hills. It's just like one of the most beautiful places. Like, you know, talk about the best place to harvest in the fall, northeast Iowa when all the leaves are changing. You're sitting there driving grain cart going through the hills. I mean, I've got these distinct memories.

We would do all of our edge rows along the trees. and it's just like, I mean, sunset, orange leaves, just driving behind the combines or open everything up. Oh, man. You lived in some pretty awesome, beautiful places, it sounds like. Yeah, I have, uh, you've gone to some real nice places. When I live in Waterloo Cedar Falls,

which no offense to Waterloo Cedar Falls, it's definitely one of the, one of the ugliest cities in Iowa, which is really saying something for the state of Iowa. We don't like, we have a couple pretty parts, but for the most part, it's a bunch of one mile by one mile fields. for the most of it. And every once in a while

there's a little hill that goes up and down, you know, and then you get towards, I always tell people like, Iowa's really great once you get pretty close to Wisconsin, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. But like all that is say is absolutely gorgeous area. Like I miss being out, I miss working outside so much. Like some days, like I'm just like, I should just ask if he needs some fence fix

so I can just go spend a day in a side by side, you know, with a couple, you know, I could spend eight hours in a side by side by myself, just checking fence, fix and fence.

Like, you know, there's just something so freeing about that. Anyways, farming was great. It was hard, but I loved it. As I was farming, I realized, oh, I've had a totally massive misconception about the entire agriculture industry. Like I lived in Montana. You know, they had cows out there, but it's, it's cowboy culture. Like, you know, I was just kind of rode it off as like, okay, yeah, you know, they've got

cows, you know, never got super involved with the livestock side of things or things like that. you know and where I grew up in California there was not a lot of agriculture which looking back now like California is the largest ag state in the country and it is the primary driver of their entire economy like even compared to you know Google and Apple being based there it's like as much as they'd like to not admit it oh yeah and so anyways like I knew nothing growing up growing up where I did you know like every once in a while you meet someone who has horses or you know if you drove a little bit north you'd find some cows but I knew nothing and so as I was working with this guy I was farming for. Tyler, if you ever listen to this podcast, like, you totally blew my mind on almost a

daily basis for the things I was learning. You know, but he would just tell me these things about like, oh, did you know that like corn gets turned into this or that they use this part of the cow for this after its process or, hey, did you know that this is actually how we do things? And that's actually not what, you know, I would ask questions like, well, what about this? You know, like, what about spraying this or you know what about you know we do we we do finish our cows in a feedlot for a couple months like what about this you know like i'd always been told feedlot bad or spraying chemicals bad you know and as i was there working every day i was like oh my gosh i've been so wrong about things like the way they do things there's a reason that you know farmers and ranchers do the things

they do is because like that is the way the best way they have found to do it and i'm not saying everything we do in this industry is right i'm not going to say that like i will always say like we have had plenty of missteps like every other industry has, you know. Every single industry has made mistakes. I'm not saying everything we do now is perfect. But what I am saying is there's a reason we do the things we do now. And it's not always, oh, some evil person came up with this great idea and they're going to poison the world and kill everyone. Like, that's not. That is not what the farmer and ranchers thinking about whatsoever. You know, maybe you get to some global corporations and there might be some like, hey, this is a really great way we can make some money, you know,

that maybe we get to that point, maybe, but, you know, never, never assume, uh, malintent or ignorance could have taken place, you know, that's a good principle for life. More often than not, people are just kind of dumb and they make bad decisions. And that's why we end up where we are. So anyways, mine was just totally blown. And I knew I couldn't stay working for this guy forever because being a farm hand is awesome, you know, for a little bit. But it's no, it's no career if it's not the right size. farm. You know, and it's like, you know, I bet you if I had stayed around for five, 10 years, I probably could have said like, yes, this is what I'm going to do. You know, ended up breaking up

with his cousin, though, you know, that fall. And I said, okay, well, now there's definitely not a chance I'm ever going to get any of this land. So, yeah, you know, so I look at, you know, I look at that. I'm like, okay, I love farming, but also, you know, they slow down a ton of the winter. Like, there's no, like, it's just cows all winter and fixing equipment. Like, he wasn't going to need me full time. So I was going to do some welding. work for the welding shop, you know, because I knew how to weld. But I was like, you know what? Like, I think I need to go find something else because if I really want to come back

to this, like, I can't be, I can't be a farmhand. That's kind of like, we live in Iowa. Farmland's expensive. Like the idea of me being able to buy farmland on a farmhand salary, especially now, it's just like it's not an option. So I said, I'm going to go do some other things. And so I took a few years off. I went and, you know, I worked for a deer dealership for four whole days.

And there's a reason it was only four whole days. and that's not a story I'll get into. So I worked as an apprentice tech for four days at a John Deeree dealership, said this is not going to be a long-term fit. And so I was just really upfront and honest with them. I was like, listen, guys, I want to be respectful of your time. I was like, I can either leave today

or I can leave in six months, but this is not a place I'm going to be able to stay for 10 years. Like just the work environment was not a place where you're like, yeah, I want to work with these people for 10 years, you know. And I was super upfront and honest about that. So ended up plowing snow for a guy. I did some more wrenching. I plowed snow for my now brother-in-law.

You know, I just met him. saw some Facebook ad for snowplow driver and I was like I can operate heavy equipment I could plow snow and so you know now we're almost four years from that and now he's my brother-in-law which is pretty cool that's a whole other story anyways all that happens um you know do all the we haven't found we haven't found any cameras or any social media yet yeah I'm on the edge of my seat oh good well there's got to be a switch here somewhere yes so anyways do all this for a few years um Facebook marketplace one day I see a drone pop up up for like 500 bucks. So I had done an internship in high school where I did some photo video stuff.

That's actually why I ended up graduating early was, hey, I wanted to start my own media company. But back then it was because that was at the time when YouTube was starting to like become a career of like, oh, like, you know, there were guys on YouTube like Casey Nystatt, the original like YouTube vlogger who was traveling the world, making all these cool videos. And I said, I want to start a photo video company so I can travel the world and do cool things like them. took a different career path and worked for, you know, a couple people who did like, you know, during that time of Montana, I worked for someone doing photo video that just like drove me into the ground, like 20 hour, out of you.

20 hour worked. Like, I would shoot all day and I would edit until 1 a.m. every night. And like, it was a, it was a great experience because, you know, working 20 hours doing anything a day, we'll teach you a lot. But it would just, they just like drove me into the ground, burnt me out. I was like, you know what, I'm done. So that's why I started picking up some more of the mechanic skills and things like that. I said, okay, I need to do something other than the photo video because this is not what I want to do.

But, you know, I decided this would have been 2021, I think. I, 2021 or 22, I found a drone on Facebook marketplace for like 500 bucks and I had some extra cash sitting around. I was like, you know what, it'd be fun to fly a drone again. I haven't flown a drone in a couple years. Like, I was like, this would be fun. And so that winter, I ended up just flying the drone around while I was plowing snow because it'd be 2 a.m. Like, no one's going to, I just drive back and forth and straight lines in a loader. like I can steer with my knee and fly the drone.

You know, this is, don't do this if you're operating equipment. But, you know, I'm, so I'm, I'm plowing with the tractor and flying the drone at the same time. and I made a couple fun videos and I posted on my little Instagram page and I showed him to the guy I was working for. And he was like, oh, that's pretty cool. You want to make a website for me? I was like, I think I could probably do that.

I could probably figure out how to make a website. And so this guy ran a snow removal, my brother-in-law, he runs snow removal in landscaping business. And I was like, yeah, I'll make a website. So I think I charged him like a thousand bucks for it. it, which paid for the camera I had to buy to then take the other photos, you know, because you can't make an entire website just off of drone photos. So I did the website and I was like, huh, that's pretty interesting.

And I, you know, this whole time farming is the back of my head. I would go up and work cows with the guy I used to farm before, you know, if they, he needed, like, I still go up almost every year in shop silage. I was doing that two weeks ago, you know. So this whole time I'm making trips up every, every other month or so to, you know, work cows or fix fence or just give him a hand, you know, with whatever he needs because I was working sort of plow on snow, but doing a case. I was basically just doing whatever I wanted to make money.

It was great. It was a great time when you're a young single guy. I mean, there's nothing better than choosing when you want to work. And it was great. Anyways, so I saw that. And I said, okay, well, I did this once. I could do it again. And there was a guy on social media who I had followed for a long time.

His name's Aaron Witt. He does construction. He basically does what I do for ag now for construction. So his whole mission is to make the dirt world a better place. So excavation, mining, all that stuff that we need to keep the world running. and he just knew like, hey, we're running out of people who work in these companies and it's like, I need to do something about this. So he started a marketing company, you know, because he said, well, we can get people learn about it. We can get awareness about this industry

out. And I said, man, he's on a pretty good track. Maybe I should try something like that. So I did, I think one other construction company's website and I said, like, something fell off. I was like, this is not what I feel like I'm supposed to be doing. And it finally clicked one day. I was like, oh my gosh, like the world knows. nothing about farming, I'm going to forego any idea I have of doing anything else. And my family thought I was crazy, the girl I was dating, who's now my wife thought I was crazy. Like, everyone told me, don't do it.

And I said, I'm only going to do agriculture from here on out. And everyone said, don't do it. You have to pay your bills. Like, you know, like be willing to take other clients. And I said, no, like, I knew right then that I had to establish my purpose and my vision for what needed to happen. And I said, anything that is not agriculture is going to stop me from a, accomplishing what needs to be done. And so for literally like six months, basically, I barely made

any money. I did like one, I did a tiling company's website. I did a couple like one off photo shoots here and there, like, but like really like scraping by basically. Like my, my now wife was like basically, like I think I was paying myself a thousand bucks a month, which when you're a single guy, I was shockingly able to make that work on super cheap rent and eating chicken and rice every single day. And that's all I got married. And my wife's like, all right, like, hey, we got start making some more money because I can't just let my freeload and husband, you know, not make any money. And so, you know, I would do some sidework here and there. You know, I'd go do some mechanics up. But I knew if I'm going to run this agriculture media company,

it's only going to be agriculture. I will say no to anything that is not that. And so for probably a year and a half, I did that. And it was basically like, you know, every once in a project come in, make a couple thousand dollars, have another project in. But it was like skimming the barrel of like, okay, like just off the top, like just enough to survive. And but I was like, I just knew, I have to only do this. Like this, for this to happen, I have to be 100% focus on this. And everyone thought I was stupid. Everyone thought I was dumb.

And looking back, like, you know, if I had had kids at that point, I would have had to, like, quit. Like, there's just, like, no other option. Like, that would have been, like, all right, this is stupid. But I knew at the time, I was like, I can do this for a year and a half. And if I, I just had a gut feeling. I was like, I know if I commit to this, it will pay off. And so, you know, and especially in agriculture, this industry is about who you

know and it's a matter of how long you've been here. And after about a year and a half of basically nothing, but spending all of my time, I posted on Instagram every single day. I went on LinkedIn every single farm show that I could possibly afford to go to. And I talked to, I would reach out a company as Instagram, LinkedIn, and at farm shows, I would go to every single booth and I said, who's in charge of your marketing? Every single one. And I would try to get their card or at the very least find someone who could give me the phone number. And after doing that for a year and half things just like like a like a switch flipped and like all of a sudden I was like traveling 24 seven had more work than I knew what to do with and I was like okay this is this is this is what we need to be

doing and that's where I really solidified my vision was like we are only here to serve agriculture that is what we do I'm not here to say oh we're here to make the prettiest photo and videos for agriculture it's like no we are here to serve agriculture and right now it's photo video but in five years that has to be something different we'll do that because that's our vision is because I knew, hey, this is what needed to happen. I knew if we were going to solve the problems that agriculture loves to complain about, we had to come at it from a servant attitude of like, I'm not here to tell it what everyone. I'm not here to tell everyone what to do. I'm here to say, hey, what can we do to serve this industry to help solve its problems?

And all right, like, that is what we are now is media marketing. And so fast forward a little bit, hired an employee, argued with the bank for so long. I don't know if you guys experienced that, but getting a line of credit is a piece. if you do not have a ton of assets or someone else to code like it man arguing the bank about a line of credit for basically a year and a half trying to be like all right hey i need i need 40 50 000 dollars so that way i can at least like secure the payroll of this employee that i need to hire and so i was arguing at the bank for a long long time and i got to the point where i was like well my wife cannot have me traveling four weeks out of the month because that's a lot like be present in

your homes that's something i really believe in so you know do all of that and still nothing from the the bank hired someone i was like okay well we're gonna we're gonna need some cash so i ended up finding a guy he found me his name's neil denton i don't know if you guys follow him on my instagram i think i do he saw a video i did for farm rescue at one point i had done like one quick little project for farm rescue because they were in the area and i was like i love farm rescue why would i um and he saw that video and i was like hey you should come down you know and come to my farm you know i'd love to meet you i'd love to he wanted to get into the social media thing. He's in his mid-40s. He had done it for a while, but he's like, I know that if we

want to do this, we should do it right. So he called me and said, hey, you know, what about you, what if I paid you to produce a YouTube channel for me and produce social media content? I was kind of like wary. I'm pretty, I try to keep, you know, influence her life and all the stuff on social media kind of separate from all of our marketing clients, things like that. And that was very much like, all right, that's something I've never done before, even thought about before. But eventually, he convinced me as like, all right, just come to. down once a month and shoot for a few days. We'll make a couple of YouTube videos and we'll make a bunch of social media content. So we did that for four or five months now at that point, four or five months.

And I just got to the point, it was bringing in a ton of work for me. I was like, oh, shoot. Like, man, like I am getting a ton of work off of this guy's social media because it looks super good and the YouTube channel looks great. And so I'm getting all these references from the YouTube channel because everyone's asking, hey, who's thinking these videos? And so I was like, man, like, this might be a good fit. And so I ended up, you know, him and I had become pretty good friends at that point and I was like you know as he's has been 40s they farm a couple thousand acres you know I was like what would you how would you feel about investing in my business and becoming my partner because I was at the point where you know I'm sure you guys felt this too is like and we're the

only one making decisions every day it just wears you out and being the only person to talk to about those things like who really understands it's just like the worst and so him and I came to a deal was like hey you're going to put X amount of dollars in the business I'm going to give you X percentage of it and we ended up doing that and let me tell you looking back that I tell people it's one of the best decisions I've ever made in my entire life. It helped kind of solve my temporary line of credit problem. I was like, okay, I've got some cash that we can use to front the payroll of this employee on top of that. Now he can co-sign on a line of credit for us because he's got some assets as long as I can put up some assets as well without it just being my entire

life, you know. And so we did that and, you know, ever since then, it's just been like, you know, he's also been around, you know, in the industry for a long time. So he makes a couple phone calls. He's like, hey, I got some references for you, call them, see if they want to work. with us and man it has been like you know i'll give this to neal you guys should have them on your podcast at some point but he uh you know he took us from two people to almost eight now and i can like a hundred percent attribute like 50 to 60 percent of that to him being willing like yeah like let's let's do this and let's do it right and so man here we are today you know there you go yeah so that's the very quick over you all stop talking we can we can no you know that's your point that's the whole point

that's awesome. So one thing, and this is just, I guess, an observation that I've seen from what we've done, and you're out there working with these ag companies, do you think we've moved far enough in the ag, the ag sector? At one point, I almost feel like there was some, there was almost resentment. within a lot of ag when it came to social media and what I would call new media. And part of that, I don't know what you call it. Somebody was talking about this.

I think you call it, they call it like siloing. Like I feel like in ag for so long we've been in this world where all we do is talk to ourselves and we promote ourselves. It's like it's the saying of preaching to the choir. I guess. And the example I'll give you is one of the very first pieces of social media content that we created for somebody outside of us. The person that we, and I'm not going to say the company we worked with, we still work with him some, but the guy that was running it, he came from print media. And we were talking about doing kind of a long form video and then breaking

it up and putting the clips on social media. And the last thing he said to me when we got it all worked out, he's like, yeah. And hey, I might send a photographer down there to shoot some stuff for some print, for some print material. And I was like, yeah, okay, yeah, sounds good. Bye, I hang up the phone. And I thought, does he not realize that you can get, you know, still, whatever still photograph, picture you want from, and I go, hmm, this is kind of strange, you know. And then they kind of wanted, they wanted that, they wanted that, uh, that content pushed out in farm magazines. And I was just like,

these aren't the people that you need to reach for what you're trying to do, you know. And that was what, that was like when we first realized that, If we're ever going to get, like if we're ever going to get this message, because we hear the same thing. We've heard it for years. Everybody talks about, nobody knows where their food comes from, everybody that's attacking agriculture. We just need to tell them.

We just need to tell them that we're doing, you know, I care and we're doing the good job and all that. But if you don't ever get out of the circle of people that believe what you believe, nothing's ever going to change. Yeah. So when you started, is that a fight that still goes on? Do you think it's getting better? So I would like to tell you that I would love to tell you that like the industry is changing and it's shifting.

I think our, it's funny that you mentioned silo because I don't know if this video ever made it to the light of day on my Instagram. I have a video of me like climbing about like halfway up a silo and like hanging off one of the rungs on it like talking about how this industry is so siloed, how we, hey, like we only have. there's only a couple people in this room really talking and it's just bouncing back and forth all the way up and it never actually gets out, you know? I would like to tell you that I think it's gotten better. Our methods have changed. So like the reception to social media now

compared to two years ago when I talked to businesses like everyone now is convinced, yes, we need social media. Two years ago, man, I was fighting an uphill battle. I'm very thankful we are where we are now because we're in a really good position for that. But, you know, I was literally we put a bid in for a short form video project with one of the commodity organizations

for one of the states. So this is like a six month bidding process of like going back and forth like, hey, what are your ideas? And we sat and I had a meeting. And the director basically looked at me and said, well, if I could see, you know, I gave them our pricing and everything.

It's like, well, if I'm going to spend that much with you guys, why wouldn't I just spend that on a TV ad? Yes. To which he said, because I know I'll get this many impressions that I know this many people will watch it. and you know I'm sitting I'm sitting there I'm I'm like trying my best to contain all of like all of my my snarkiness and my sarcasm inside of me because I'm like okay I am bidding a project for this like I got to keep my composure and so I'm sitting there just breathing real deep trying to keep my composure and basically what I had to respond like my response to that is always like listen I can probably first of all I was like I bet you I can get you just as many impressions for the similar price I'm also going to argue that the impressions we get are going to be far more much more meaningful than the things that people aren't going to no one's watching ads on TV. You know what they're doing?

They're going out of their phone and scrolling. I was like, would you rather be the one being ignored or the one at least you have the chance of people paying attention when they scroll by you while they're already like ignoring your ad? And that would be my response to anyone who thinks that. It's like, yes, it has this place. If you're trying to do brand awareness and things like that, I think it's great. But like you really want to connect with someone, which is specifically like commodity organizations have two jobs, lobby and hopefully convince people to vote.

for the things they're lobbying for. And how do you do that? PR and lobbying. You know, like that's what you do. Like you have to convince your politicians. You have to convince the people. That's what you do as a commodity organization

to keep your people who are in your commodity organization and paying their dues happy. You know, and so all that happens and, you know, we did end up securing the bid at a much, like we had to like downscale a bunch of stuff for them to actually like want to spend the money.

It's like, you know, so I'd like to tell you yes, it's getting better. But everyone in this industry is still thinking the same way of like, like they I like to describe agriculture as a room where uh there's a bunch of people in it and they all have known each other for 20 30 years and there's a new guy who pops in every once a while and they end up leaving because no one ever talks to them because they're all hanging out

their buddies and like and like I've kind of like started to boil that down into like our business as well as like there's there's things like there's meetings that happen or like differently networking is super important and all that but this industry is particularly bad of like if you are not in that room, you will be discredited or forgotten about. And I have said, well, you guys are all going to do that. I'm going to go over here and actually saw, like, let's just say, let's take some of the meetings that happen at the, you know, like Iowa courthouse, for example. Like, we have all these things. We are an ag state. Iowa is notoriously one of the biggest ag states. Like we, we do a lot nationwide for the ag industry. And so there's a lot of conversations that are happening in our Iowa government or

even in DC that involve a bunch of us, a bunch of people from Iowa or a bunch of these companies and a bunch of these leaders from Iowa. And I'm sure they are doing something, but it's taking 30 years for things to happen in those rooms, which is great. I love that. I love that there's people who enjoy doing that because I have zero desire to hang out politicians. What I always argue is that, listen, you guys can keep pushing the ball over there, but that ball weighs 2,000 pounds and you are not going to be able to push it by yourself and you're not going to get very far. And my argument is always like, listen, you guys do that, but we're going to be over here trying to make an impact online through social media through the next generation because you want people to vote the right way. Get to them through the right methods. Don't get to them through those methods. Get to them through the right methods. And I'm not saying we should stop doing that. But I am saying like if we're going to put all this energy in, let's put just as much energy in over here. So that way maybe maybe we stand a chance. Because I was reading the stat just the other day. It's like there's like about to be like $30 trillion in wealth. down from the boomer generation to the millennial generation in the next like 15, 20 years.

And do you know what most of that's held up in? Farmland. It's like, okay, we have way bigger issues than lobbying in Congress right now. We have so much larger issues in that because what's going to happen is this massive amount of wealth is going to transfer the next generation. And these younger people don't want anything to do with it. You know what's going to do? It's going to get split up and gone to auction. And it's going to get bought up by some large farm or some large organization, which, you know, we only need to get into the corporate farm things, but it's like, okay, yes, farms are not corporate yet, but we are moving towards that of like, it's the get big, get out mentality. And what happens when there's only one farm left? Well, the government runs it.

And I say this all the time. It's like the last thing any of us want is the government growing our food, you know? 100%. Yeah, and that's not what the consumer wants either. No. They don't want that at all. But the consumer doesn't realize that we have, we have this, we need people in agriculture. We are running out of labor. And everyone's answer is automation. Well, automation can only go so far. You still have to have someone to manage the automation of it. So we have this massive transfer of wealth to a generation who doesn't want the land. They want the paycheck. And on top of that, because of that and some other factors, we have no labor in this industry. So we are like heading in the next 15, 20 years for some super bad things. If we don't get people back in this

industry and lobbying in Congress is going to do nothing. No. Yeah. That's not going to. It's not going to be fast. It's not going to get the job done fast. All that's going to happen is we make H2A labor a little easier to get a hold of, but at some point we're going to run out of H2A labor too because like, you know, there's a lot of people who want to come to the U.S. and work, but also at the end of the day, like, there could become a point where we have a hard time getting migrant labor as well. And like, we don't want to be moving towards a world where the U.S. can't grow its own food anymore.

And like, yeah, yeah. That's a big issue. And I want to just touch on your point of just like TV ads and versus social media. It's a for, I mean, I think ag's definitely slow in that side of media. They definitely are. We've worked with companies that are the same way. Dad brought up that example, but it's just crazy to me that social media has been around this long and people still have that mindset that the TV ad is better than the social media when everyone uses social media. Everyone has social media. Everybody, it is the number one place to be if you're going to mark it. Yes. And,

you know, the only Gary Vee always talks about it. You know, the only ad that he would run on TV is Super Bowl. Super Bowl ad. Because that's when people actually watched the commercials

because they look forward to the commercials. Other than that, you should rather spend that money on social media because it's exactly what you said. It's not how wide you can go. It's how deep you can go.

You know, you have to go deep. If you want to actually make an impact, you actually want to turn a stranger into a customer, turn somebody into a believer of what you're doing. Like, social media is the way to do that. And like,

and it's the only way you can really go deep. You can't go deep on a 30 second ad on, on a commercial. You can't really go super deep on a magazine. I mean, you can maybe write an article, but I just don't feel like it has the same, as social media content does.

We could spend $50 million, you know, on a farmer-grade ad for the Super Bowl or whatever. Put it up there. And you know what? You're probably going to get a ton of orders. It's probably going to do great things. Chances it's not going to return. are pretty high.

But on top of that, if we're talking about in terms of agriculture, it's like, well, we also really want to work with companies that want to make an impact. And so, like, we want them if they're going to spend their dollars to, like, at least spend some of that highlighting some of their growers or the people they work with, not just like, oh, look at this product, well, great. This is like, no, get the people who are paying you to be on camera and share their stories. So, you know, we take that money spent on a Super Bowl ad. Yeah, you're going to get a bunch of customers. But do we ever make that connection?

No, you're probably going to have way deeper connections by spending. that same amount of money on a YouTube channel. Build a YouTube channel. Spend that money building a YouTube channel and audience because you know what? If people aren't on their phone scrolling, you know, if you look at the statistics,

the amount of YouTube being watched on TVs at home is insane. Like we get that comment all the time. People will put this podcast on their TV, watch it at home, put our YouTube channel on TV, this will do farm and watch it as a family. Like, we get that comment all the time. The best video performance-wise

and revenue-wise we ever had on YouTube was an hour-plus-long video on YouTube because, and you can look at the stats on it, you guys know this, you can go to the YouTube Analytics and you can see how many people watch on their TV or mobile. And man, the disproportional percentage to people who watched on TV on that video compared to the other ones was crazy

because what they did is they saved it and they put it on their TV when they got home and they sat there and watched it for an hour. They said, hey, everybody watched this. Like an episode of TV. They said, this is my TV now. I'm going to watch this hour-long farm YouTube video over putting on cable television.

I think one of the, I get your take on this, one of the things that I feel like media has, not only media, but a lot of marketing people involved these companies have missed is this trend that people today

have a much higher, I don't know if you want to say it, I'll just for lack of a better term, they have a very high IQ when it comes to knowing if somebody's selling to them that's not genuine. And so that's why ad penetration is probably whatever that number is, it's the worst it's ever been. Because if you, if you aren't, if you aren't sincere in what you're doing and you don't believe in what you're doing, I think it's the same as the trend we see with kind of Hollywood and actors and the surge of reality television versus soap operas. Because people don't want fake, people want real, they want genuine. And if you are trying to sell somebody something, as soon as that consumer sniffs out that you're not sincere,

they don't want anything to do with it. This trend, that is the biggest thing that I've realized this year and last year. It's just like, I think ever since COVID, people just don't trust. They're lacking trust in our government and our politicians and in the food, big food, in big corporations, you know, like everything. And so people that we talk about it all the time on this podcast, people that keep it real, have the deepest rooted connection with the people that listen and tune in with their stuff. And that's what matters right now. It's not about the followers. It's not how many

followers, it's not how many impressions. It's how many impressions, how many followers actually give a shit. That's what matters. Building a community is more important than ever before because I think the influencer culture, that kind of culture, that kind of theme isn't, people are tired of it. So toxic. They're tired of it. I cannot scroll on social media anymore because it's just like, follow me to do this course and make a bunch of money being an influencer. Here's the trick to get this real to go viral. And it's like, okay, I've been posting on social media for years now.

And you guys have been too. It's like the people who have committed to it for the long term are not here to make a quick buck. They're, you know, like you guys, like here to build a community. And like that's also where I've, like, that's where I see. I tell companies this all the time that we work with. I was like, 2025 is the year of YouTube and deeply engaged customers and communities. It's not the year of pay this influence to do this. No, it's building that connection at a deeper level, you know, because we're officially at the point where there's too many influencers to keep track of all this.

There's too many. And that's the hard part too is half the influencers do just want to sell stuff. They do just want to make money. But, you know, and you got to keep the lights on. You know, you do have to pay the bills to keep the lights on. We run a YouTube channel without any sponsors. And I pay someone to produce that. That's our only job.

I lose a lot of money paying that guy. But I know that authenticity is more important. And if we're going to bring on a sponsor, I wanted to make sure it's the right one. But also I know that like, you know, for us being mission oriented as a company, like, you know, at the end of the day, I'll put my money where my mouth is and say that I would rather this not make any money for a while knowing that it's for the right cause.

You know, and people, people, I heard it on a podcast today, intent comes with a smell. and if you have selfish or greedy intentions, whether it's now or in six months, someone's going to sniff it out and they're going to find it. And you're going to be the one thrown under the bus. It's very easy to tell that these days. And it's also interesting, if you read the statistics,

a lot of followers and a lot of viewers actually want the people they follow to take on sponsorships because they want them to be able to keep doing what they're doing. Yeah, because they enjoy following you. With that said, there's that earned trust of, I want you as someone who has a platform to be able to do this consistently and pay your bills and be rewarded for it. They want that for you as a trusted follower. But on the flip side, they also want to be respected because they gave you that trust.

Yeah, they don't want you to peddle junk to him. And it's like, politicians are the best example of this of like make a bunch of promises, you know, and then never fulfill them. It's like, we wonder why no one trusts them. And the same thing in this space now. It's like, if you're going to do something, follow through on it, keep your word. and make sure at all cost you keep your viewers trusting what you're doing. Even if there's a misstep, be honest about it, have a conversation about it.

And like this entire online economy has only existed for a couple years now. So everyone's learning at the same time. But if we're learning one thing, it's like audience trust is going to be paramount to this. And that's where like agriculture comes in. I was like, okay, this is why agriculture needs to be online telling their story because it's the class of saying, If we don't tell our stories, someone else will. And that's what's been happening is these trusted online sources who get all, just read a Wall Street journal article or read some bogus study that some university in California

in the middle of San Francisco did. And they say, oh, man, act bad and influencer said that bad. So now I don't trust my food system. It's all over. The two things on social media these days, people trying to get rich and people don't try to scare you. And that's not what I want on my social media. I want people to show up and be inspired every day.

I want people to show up and watch what we do and say, man, I want to keep going because they're going to keep going. You know, like we're in this world now where 98% of people online just want your money or, you know, they want to scare you so they can get more views to make more money. And it's like, okay, well. And really, they're not following any, they're not, it's, that's the same, that's the same practice that, I mean, that's what media runs on. So we've seen that now.

We're to, we're to the point where whichever legacy media company, you want to follow. I mean, the only stories that get pushed are stories that scare people. Because they figured out that telling good news, there is good news out there, but telling that doesn't get ratings. The biggest rate, that's why, that's why on the one hand, that, I'm not to get political, but that's why the left had such a love-hate relationship with Donald Trump, whether it ends or whether he becomes president. That part doesn't matter. They have wanted to keep him around as long as possible because the best ratings they ever had was when they could all hate on him. I mean, because they had a whole demographic of people that they had scared to death to where that was good

for the ratings. But we see it the same way. It's just like, so scare people to get views, to sell a product, whatever. It's too bad that it's that way, but it's kind of our society. but then at the same time on the flip side of that people are i feel like people have woke up to where they have such a strong BS meter that man as soon as they think that you're not sincere they're done they're done and so it's just it's a really interesting dynamic um and i don't know I don't know whether or not, I don't know whether or not there's enough people, whether there's enough people within our industry to get enough traction to solve our problems fast enough on the labor side.

Well, that's what I was going to ask you guys was like, you know, I sit online all day. Like if you listen to any of the podcasts I go on or my podcast or really anything, like, I'm a dude. I'm a very problem-solving oriented person. I'm sure you guys are too. I like solving problems and like that's what keeps me up at night is trying to solve these problems. And I also have to acknowledge like, well, I can't be the only one who thinks about this. So what are your guys taking? I mean, we've got massive land transfers here very soon, a lot of it going up for auction, none of us being able to afford to buy it, labor shortages, wisebred misquit. We got a lot of problems and I'm not going to discredit that there are small problems at all,

but a problem is only a problem until we solve it and that it's, then we have a solution. So what are we going to do? Like, what are we as a, what are our steps forward as an industry that we all need to be talking about to solve some of these problems? Because I don't hear a lot of good conversations going on about it that aren't just

automate the tractors, you know? Yeah. I feel like telling, like we do now, promoting agriculture in a positive, like getting young people interested in agriculture with just showing, showing the best parts of it is a grid step to get more young people interested to work in agriculture.

I think that's definitely number one. That's a great thing. Can I just give a shout out to your meat packing videos? Like, there are some of my favorite things to come across my feed of just like, I wonder what Sawyer's packing. Well, thanks, man. I appreciate that. It's one of the more creative ways I've seen farm social media done. Yeah. Well, thanks. I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, that's just any way we can promote this industry to get. get people excited about wanting to be a part of it. I think that might help some of the labor problem, but that won't solve all of it. I think automation has its place, but I don't think that's the end-all be-all. I think that'll come. I think that's going to be necessary, but I think it's what you said. I don't think that's going to, you still got people that have to manage the automation. We still,

if we do have autonomous tractors, we still got to know how to run the fucking software to make the tractors go and if something goes wrong, we need to know how to fix it, you know. I think this is kind of economics, but like I think we're kind of transitioning from, you know, working with China a lot as a nation to now Mexico, their demographics, they have the youngest workforce out there, one of the youngest workforce is out there. And youngest consumer base. Youngest consumer base and they're our next door neighbor. And so if we can leverage, you know, you've seen a lot of these like deer specifically. They're building plants in Mexico because they know the labor is not specialized, but there's enough of it there. And so I feel like as a nation, I think we're going to be working with

Mexico a lot more because of those demographics and they're so close. And I think maybe their workforce will get more specialized as time goes on. So that's something I think can maybe work for the labor problem. I think immigration, it's one of those topics that politicians like to run on to say we're going to solve it. And then the other side says, oh, we're going to solve it. I think it could be solved, but I don't think either party really wants to solve it because they run on it and fundraise on it. But I think immigration is necessary. We need it. I think that we just got to figure it. It just needs to be a whole lot easier. It just needs to be a whole lot easier. It needs to be simplified. And I'm pro-immigration if we can just find a system to make it easier and to become legal immigrant. Yeah, I don't think people understand

how badly our economy would hurt if like immigration reform that every politician's ever talked about takes place. It's like, all right, guys, like, you don't understand. Like, you know, we love to give Gavin Newsome a bunch of crap for like, you know, giving a bunch of illegal immigrants stimulus money. But it's like, dude, that economy would have totally crashed if they did not do something. Because it is, so dependent on migrant labor. I was in Colorado two weeks ago, not even like a week and a half ago and I went to an onion field and there are like 200 plus Hispanic families harvesting onions by hand. Like no, I'm sorry, no one from Denver was going to do that. No one. And that's the sad part too. I think I think that's why it's so important that we do promote like social media is done a

the service to the blue collar industry, the roofers, the welders, the people that build roads, construction. If you're not this young guy bawling the fuck out and owning a Lambo and having all these chicks and having your own business, you're a failure. And that's what's getting promoted. And that's not realistic for most people. And we got to go back to be like, dude, roofers are the shit. Like construction workers are the shit. like they build the stuff that actually people use and like without them like we'd be screwed farmers are the shit like we if we didn't have farmers we wouldn't have food like we got to promote these industries of and and and make it make young men and women feel okay that like hey what you do

matters it really matters and like that stuff that that lifestyle that's being shoved down our throats there's a lot of shit that comes with that too and it's It's not the greatest thing since sliced bread. You know, it's what you do matters and what you work towards matters and we need it. Yeah. And we got to put those kind of people on a pedestal. I really do. I think just to add on to that real quick, like there's a growing, there's growing research

and trends that the next generation cares far more about where they work and why they do their work every day. Like the next generation cares a lot about working for places that are going to make an impact, not just pay them. Like we're moving it the the way the the podcast I listened to describe it is you know a hundred years ago the business was a pillar of the community and employed a bunch of people it took care of their it took care of their employees it helped invest in their community. It was something that was a hopefully good force for your town or for your state and a lot of people would work for places because they knew like that I mean deer's been built on that for decades of like I'm going to go work for deer because they're American made they take

care of their people and they support American farmers. Like that was like every every deer I talked to who's worked for deer for 20 plus years. That's why they tell you they work for deer. It's going to all live in Dyke, Iowa. Like there's a town. There's a town. And it's like if you, we, we went to a, we went to a golf thing there. And it was just, it was like during the week, it was for a, it was a hog deal. But there was a whole, but it wasn't closed. The, the, the, course wasn't close for the day. There wasn't that many people golfing. And, and, and that evening, we were in the clubhouse and I went around and it's like hey you know I'm so and so oh I retired from deer I retired from deer and then then somebody was there was like uh yeah this town is

basically retired a hundred that was what deer was but and I'm not get let's not pick on deer a lot of companies yeah around here procter and gamble and I was said the exact same way people went to work for them and they're retired with them and they had a good pension but we got away from that. Corporate America. That's the down one. Not so much corporate America as the S&P 500. Stockholders change that. And we, we have moved, you know, we've swung way up

into the okay, massive highly, like, and that's why Deere has, you know, gone the way it has is because of the stock market, because of their shareholders. We've gone way up because their shareholders want immediate returns. They want to invest in a stock and in a day and a half make some money on it. Not, oh, you know, and that's how it's all gone. But the next generation, very much is like, I don't care about the stock price. I care about, is this company going to

take care of me? Are, am I going to make an impact in the world at work I do every day? And there's actually, it was a pocket. There's, there's a new stock exchange. It's one of five that are open in the US. It's called like the long term shareholder stock exchange or whatever. It's, they just got certified a few years ago, but their whole goal is like, we want every company that's on here to know who their investors are. And so they're, you know, they're still thinking people who have hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars to invest. But they're very much like we want, not that you can't trade on our platform, but you're going to know who's trading on your platform. And you're going to want it. They want it to be people who are there for the 10, 15, 20 year returns. They

want it to be companies that want to give their employees 30 year stock holdings who, because they want them to stay around for that long. And so I think we're going to see a swing back to that in the next decade as this new workforce comes in of like, hey, I do care about getting paid, but I care just as much about being taken care of well. And knowing that I don't, you know, I have a positive impact on on society in the world, which gives hope for hopefully farming and blue collar industries because there's nothing more rewarding than farming, blue collar

work, or pretty much anything that like when you work with your hands, there's something very fulfilling about what you do every day. Yeah, and like I, what you said, I've talked to, I mean, I've talked to you about that so many times. Like, my dream with Farmer grade, it's not about building like the biggest

and greatest and most profitable and most revenue meat business in the world. It's, I want to build impact. I want to do it the right way. And when I've talked about, you know, what it could look like if we owned our own cutting facility someday and, you know, we owned our own warehouse and we owned our own headquarters and it could do cut, pack, and ship all in one. Like, I've talked about, I, that thought of giving a shit about your employees is going to, I think you're so right. It is, you need, like, look at first form. We brought that up before we even got started. But when you, I've, I follow the founder,

Andy Furcella and I listen to him pretty regularly. And anytime you hear somebody come on that podcast, they always talk about how great the employees are, how bought it and they are, how good the culture is. And it's because they actually give a shit about the person, not them just showing up and doing the work for them in the hours that they're there. They invest in their people. They have a library there. they invest in them as far as their skill set and they give a shit about their physical health and give them resources to work on themselves in that way. And it's just, I think, as founders and small business owners and I think valuing the employee as a person is what we have to strive for. Oh, man. It's having, like when I think about a processing facility, how many processing

facilities out there have state-of-art locker rooms or places to get to get ready to go on the on the floor how many of them actually care about their physical health that are giving them gym memberships at the local gym or even have their own gym for their employees to work in or work out in or you know investing in the person not just giving them a paycheck is is got to be the move and let me tell you like like i try to take that mentality as well as like all of our employees for salary, which is like one of the greatest blessings and curses from a revenue standpoint. It's like great. I know exactly how much money is coming out of my bank account every single month. With that said, is like there's days, like you, there's a certain level of trust that you

can't do this with every employee, but if you can build a culture around and that's what we've been trying to do is like, like, so say for example, yesterday, one of my guys, he's super sick. He got the flu or something and he was going to work the next day. And I, he was telling me how he was feeling. I was like, no, we're going to find someone else to take care of your workload. and you're taking all the tomorrow off. Like you're not going to think about working. And like that sort, like,

because he loves working so much for us. He's like, I want to get this project done. And he'll work a 16 hour day to do it. But it's understanding that that employee would spend 16 hours a day trying to get a project done for me because he does really enjoy his job. The least I can do is say, you're going to take a sick day.

And I'm telling you, you have to take a sick day. Because he would have showed up the next day and forced myself to work. But like, it's understanding that your team, it's understanding that people need to be taken care of sometimes or is the same mentality like oh like we we have four weeks PTO which is a ton of PTO

for any small company it's a lot of like money technically out of my pocket but man there's nothing better than hearing my employees come back saying oh man I had such a good week off I'm so excited to be back at work like there's nothing more rewarding than like hearing people say that and that week they'll go and put a tent they'll work until 11 that night to get a project done I've never I've never asked a single one of my team members to work late and I think every

single one has. And I have to consistently tell them to stop working because I trust them. And they love what they do every day because once again, we have, we have purpose. And we've got plenty of other problems. Don't get me wrong that we're working through. But overall, our team, like, I know that like if I need something done, they're going to get it done, you know, whether that's, you know, tonight or in two weeks. But it's a matter of like, you know, if we got a press on something, they're going to take care of it because I think there's a sense of trust is like, hey, I'm here to take care of them as well. Like that's, that's how I feel about my position is like, I have a responsibility to these people who trust me with at least eight hours of their day.

Like I have a responsibility to use that time well and make sure that what they do during that eight hours does not destroy their life outside of that eight hours. I want them to be like, like I had to tell one of our employees. She hasn't taken any PTO this year. I said it doesn't roll over. Like you need to take a week off for the end of the year because we give them two weeks off at Christmas and New Year's. But I said like, I want you to take a week off between here and then. Like because I want because I know it'll be good for you.

But, you know, she very much is like, no, I'll just keep working. I'm good. I'm like, no, no, no, you're going to take that PTO. And if you go work and do other work, that's fine. You know, go work for someone else, go do some freelance stuff, whatever. But she would not do it unless I have told her to. But it's my responsibility to say, you should do that because it's good for your mental health, which is important.

And it's also good for your personal life. Like, go, go tidy things up in your personal life, clean your house, you know, go, go take your car to the shop, do things that you might not do and push off until a later date. Like, spend time doing that, you know? And it's just, once again, it's so rewarding. Yeah, and people want that. That's what people want from a job these things. You know, they value that stuff way more than the paycheck and that you're seeing that more and more. I think 90% of them would say, yeah, like, I would forego a higher paying job because of the way I'm treated here.

Like, I think most of them would say that. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. You got any solutions on what? Well, something we didn't touch on. And this is, I think this is one of the biggest, this is the time bomb. This is the thing that's got to be figured out. I don't know how you do it is the part of our industry, the part of agriculture that is not being reached through social media because they don't do social media.

And the part that is going to play the largest role in that transition of what's going to happen to all this land is all the people that own it all. so all of the older farmers out there that have this have this ground and don't have a transition plan and don't know what they're going to do um for one we need a we need a solution we need a financial solution for young farmers that want to get started that are willing to work out a deal with somebody to purchase their farm uh-huh i don't know what that looks like like and you're talking about getting politicians involved and we we haven't had a budget do you know we haven't had a budget in this country since what was that i threw out there it's like 20 i want to say it's like 20 12 maybe there hasn't been a but we've been we've been running on a

continuing uh uh resolution and basically the federal reserve has been running our budget for us. So when I think about having to get a legislative solution to help young people be able to acquire farmland, I don't have a lot of faith in that. But then the other side of it is there's a lot of tools out there that can be done if planning is made. However, the people that have to do all that planning, they are the most difficult to connect with because they don't use traditional media today. Yeah. And typically if they haven't come up with a plan yet,

the chances that you're going to be able to get them to make up. I agree. Succession planning and all of that. Like, man, every state I travel to, I hear almost an identical story of, yep, this guy said they had a plan. This was going to happen, but nothing was ever written down. There was never a will. There was no estate. There was no trust. There was nothing. And it ended up a bunch of siblings never talking to each other again and they all selling it out from under each other or owning it and renting it to a bunch of different people and it's just like time and time again it's the same story the same story yeah and so at the end of the day i i kind of see like i think that we're headed to a time in agriculture of two different worlds uh the one being the very large the very

large operators that are running traditional corn bean uh wheat whatever farming a pile of acres, trading equipment constantly because you can't afford to own it. And basically corporate. And then a group of people that can't afford to buy a large chunk of ground that are going to be very intent on building a community, very intent on building their personal brand, their farm brand,

and find a niche, and then using that niche to create the capital to grow to buy land. But I think the void between those two groups is going to be huge, and that group at the top is going to be very tiny. Because the other part of that is the number of older farmers out there that they are willing to have basically, they're going to get a seed corn trip in the middle in the wintertime and they're going to get a chemical trip to go fishing in the summer and the rest of the time they don't care they'll work their fingers to the bone

and they that's their life their identity is that fleet of equipment they have and that address they have okay but when you hand that to the next generation and we and we see this this is why the device rate in agriculture, and I don't know what that statistic is, but I can just tell you from, when you just think about our community and the people we know, the number of young farmers that get started, that come back home, they get married, and then they end up getting divorced because they try to run the life that their dad ran, and the wife that doesn't come, or vice versa, that doesn't come from agriculture, they're like, this is not what I signed up for.

this is not the life that I want. You know, there is no balance. So as that goes, the gap between the people that are willing to run that lifestyle to have that size of operation and carry that debt load and that stress level and everything that goes with it, I just feel like the middle...

Yeah, the age of the 500 to 1,500-acre farmer, especially in Iowa, is coming to it. close. The couple the couple sub 1,000 growers I know in Iowa still, they hire everything out. They plant and they harvest everything else, someone else does. That's all they do. And you know what they all do? They all have an off-farm job.

They plant real hard in the spring. They harvest real hard in the fall real quick. And then everything else is hired out to the co-op and their income is generated by something else. Whether that's running your own seed dealership or working at a job in town, whether that's construction. You know, that's what they do.

And I don't I don't want to see it go that way. I do not. Like rural America, you guys, you guys know, rural America is struggling hard. Like, this country needs more people in small towns more than ever. And I talked with the joy of all trades about that a few weeks ago. Like we have these, like, we have these communities that were once like great health. They're not perfect, but healthy communities. They have their own grocery store. They had their own little meeting places. They had their own little restaurants. And now it's Casey's and Dollar Generals across the entire country. at least in mostly small towns, and we're looking at all this and we're saying, well, this is just how it is. And I look at that and say, this is how it is,

and this is how it is going. But like you're saying, like, I think there is a very large opportunity for direct-to-consumer food. Like, I tell people this all the time. It's like,

if you are not, if you are not considering direct-consumer as an option for your mid-sized farm in the next decade, I will always tell people, like, listen, it's a lot of work. You got to basically start your own marketing company.

You have to become a website developer. You have to deal with the USDA, which is never fun. You know, you have to deal with all of that, and it's a ton of work. But, man, like, you guys know. I mean, the community you form around that is great. You guys built your personal brand to the point where you can sell nationwide. But, I mean, we have, there's a little farm in the center of Cedar Falls, Waterloo, Iowa. They're, like, five acres.

And you know what? They show up to every farmer's market, and they are, they bring, like, two enclosed trailers full of produce every time. And they have, like, six people who work there. And it is five acres. That is not a lot in Iowa And they make it work It's right in the center of town

Literally it's surrounded by highway And they make it work And you know let me tell you I love buying my produce from them I love going to the farmer's market And handing my dollars over them Yeah it's more expensive In the grocery store but man I'm like

I know you employ people I know you're here for the community I know that you grow your food To the super high quality Like man there's just something like so cool about that If every community had more options like that More people would buy direct to consumer It's just there, there's this big gap.

The reason growers don't do it is because they're like, well, there's no market for it. It's like, no, there is a market for it. It's just hard to get to that market. And then all the consumers, like, I don't know where to find it. And so there's a company that we've done some work for called our farms and their whole goals to like make is basically to create the Amazon of direct to consumer farming, which I'm like all behind it. I'm like, if they can pull it off, it's going to change.

It's going to change the direct consumer economy for sure. But stuff like that needs to keep being pushed because you're right. We're going to have these, we're always going to have commodities, but the way the commodity market is, like, everyone's like, oh, the commodity market has this ups and downs. And you're like, yes. The way the commodity market is now, yes, it always goes up. It always goes down. But you guys know, I mean, those margins have gotten thinner decade over decade. And to everyone who keeps saying, oh, it'll go back up.

I'm like, you're right, it will. But do you know what? These large companies know how much money they can make out. They know the profit margins on farms, and they know how tight they can squeeze you before you go bankrupt. They're not here to make you go bankrupt. They're here to get you close enough that you survive another year and buy a little more when you take out that next bank clone. And so I do see very large commodity. I view the guys farming five, 10,000 acres, you know, continuing to grow.

But I think that kind of smaller, it's going to be, you know, either figure out how to become one of those guys and work your butt off to do it. And if you want to commit to that, then go for it. But also I'm like, man, you could do a lot with, you know, it's hard. Iowa is a bad example because we have ridiculously high farmland prices, especially. if you have a mortgage on it right now. But man, like, you know guys know how much hay we can grow here? You know how, you know, how blessed we are in Iowa

to be able to grow hay and feed cows here? Like, guys out west are lucky to get a couple inches of rainy year to grow hay. And we are getting five cuttings on good years. Like, oh, I got four cuttings. It's been a rough year. It's like, all right, guys. Like, you can grow so much meat in Iowa

just based on our farm, just because our land is so far. fertile. We get great rainfall. It's like there's so many options and opportunities. It's just no one's really taking the risk to do it at scale. Like it's like, yeah, what would it look like to have, you know, a 2,000 acre cattle ranch in Iowa? Like, what would that look like? You don't, you don't meet 2,000 acre cattle ranchers in Iowa. But I'm sure there's someone smart enough to figure it out. Yeah. I'm sure there's someone smart enough to figure out how to grow a personal brand, do the marketing and like distribute that. Like it's doable. It's just who's going to be that

person like stop complaining about their problems and do something about it because it can happen. Yeah, and you know, earlier we were talking about how the consumer, the rest of America that don't know, that they don't know, they don't know the story of ag or they're far enough removed that they really don't know where their food comes from. Yes, we have to do a much better job of showing what we do and educating people. But one of the problems that we have is, and we've made this example on the meat side, After something happens, when a market is mature or whatever, the consumer doesn't like the lack of choice. And so an example of that is like in the meat business, people like to talk that there's basically four packers that control the swine, control pork cutting facilities and marketing. And they don't like that. and they want to go after everybody loves to hate on Smithfield or JBS.

And what I say is it's a little late in the game because the way they got there was they were able to make, the margins in that business are horrible. And all the other people went out of business. They just did a good enough job of somehow making enough of a profit that everybody else quit. And now then they have this moat. And if you don't want that to be, if you don't want to have corporate government run agriculture,

you can't wait till after it happens and say, boy, this sucks. You have to make the decision that you're not going to buy everything that goes in your card and everything you consume by whatever the cheapest item is. And you have to support those people that are willing to do it. And that's, it's really hard to do. But we, it's, it's that way in so many industries, we get consolidated. And once it's consolidated, everybody's pissed. But we don't do anything about it as it's marching that way.

And I don't know what the answer is, but I know that you vote with your dollars. Yeah, you do vote with your dollars. And that's the hard part is I, you know, the coasts are getting there. The coasts are getting there. The coasts are coming, you know, the east and west coasts are getting to the point where they're willing to spend some more on their food. Because they are, first of all, they already have high food prices. But they're also, they also understand that, hey, bottom dollar probably also means bottom quality.

You know, and that's like, I am so thankful for the food security we have in the U.S. Man, it should blow everyone's mind that you go into Walmart every single week. And there's always food on their shelves, produce on those shelves. Like the logistical nightmare that it is to make all of that happen, we take for granted so often. I don't want to, like, discredit that. with that said, shelf stable and mass quantity do probably lead to some sort of quality deficiency. That's just logical. So are we, if we want higher quality food, we have to say, I have to spend a few more

dollars on that if I want. And let me tell you, like I work out every single day. I love buying direct, like direct from producer. Love it. It's only like probably 20, 30% of our budget that I can actually afford to buy direct from producer. I would love for it to be 100 one day. I want to work towards that point, but I made of money,

and that means I can't do that. Also, like, you know, I like pineapple. Where am I supposed to find a pineapple producer in Iowa to get pineapple? No, I have to go to the grocery store to get that from someone who shipped it from thousands of miles away where they grow pineapple. That's awesome that I can do that. So it's finding that balance of, hey, who is willing to invest in their health, invest in higher quality food?

Who is willing to also say, I would be willing to pay an extra price to know. know who grew it. I think that's another big thing that is going to become huge is like you were talking earlier, authenticity online. Like people are going to want transparency in their food. I think that's going to be a huge thing the government's going to probably start implementing that. We already have to keep records on everything and be transparent so we can track outbreaks.

I think there's a world where we have some sort of software or some sort of database where, hey, basically every point on the food supply chain is tracked and it's going to be publicly accessible so people can literally like oh where did this product in the grocery store come from blockchain blockchain's coming blockchain is coming buy your groceries with bitcoin and you can trace it every step of the way well and that's the thing is like i i tell people all the time and actually i i have thought about starting a company around this i'm actually was thinking about the drive down but i did some research on it i bm and walmart have already partnered on technology to do that Like IBM and Walmart have been using blockchain technology to track supply chain in their food system for a couple years now.

And that's like I tell people all the time. Like everyone says blockchain. You're like, oh, Bitcoin. It's like no supply chain. It's a perfect translation of the technology. It's just no one has figured it out at scale quite yet. Well, and that, you know, there's a story there not to, I'm going to beat the hog, the hog business. The hog business is one of the best closed loop.

food production systems there is and I will you know here we are we use hog manure to fertilize our crops we take that crop we haul it to the feed mill that grinds the feed for those hogs they bring the hogs to us we finish them we have solar on all our hog buildings you might love solar you might hate solar whatever but we you know we're no till in our crops we're doing everything we can to close that loop to where this year's group of pigs fertilizes next year's corn crop that feeds the next group of pigs. And we're doing that at scale. So, I mean, we custom feed pigs for a family farming operation. Granted, it's a huge family farming operation. And there's less family, there's less family than employees now that are in it. But agriculture has a

great story to tell, we just need to do a really a much better job of telling it. For sure. For sure. All right. Well, last two questions here. What is, what's your biggest, craziest goal or dream accomplishment you want to work towards coming up? This year was 100 million impressions on social media. I think we're about 76 or 78 right now, which is like, I bet you were probably higher than that if I dug into every platform. But just on Instagram. I think that's what we're turning towards. So I think one more quarter will be, we'll be able to hit that before the end of the year. So that was our big one for this year. I'd say, oh man, there's so many. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a big dreamer. I'd say, I'd say for probably,

this is going to be a huge one, but I would like for in a decade when people think of our company, they think of our mission, which is to serve agriculture and also to know that like our sole purpose is to hopefully try to solve some of these complicated problems. Like that would be my big goal is like, I don't need a billion followers. I don't need a billion people who know what I'm doing. But I want, at least in this industry, when people think about what we do to say, like, hey, they're leading the way and at least trying to solve these problems. You know, and not saying we have the answers.

I don't want anyone, I don't want to sound super prideful and say, oh, I'm the smartest in the room. It's like, no, I know nothing, but I want to make sure my full energies are dedicated to solving problems that other people have deemed too complicated. Because I think if we, if we open up that door in our mind and say it can be solved, Well, then the whole world opens up an opportunity. I always tell people like, dream big. And like if you're shooting for the stars and you hit the moon, you're still on the freaking moon. I mean, that's sick.

You know, like that's what I tell people is like, you know, like if we have these big problems in this industry that we need to solve, like let's not say they're too big. Let's say they are big and let's figure out a big solution to them. So whatever that looks like in a decade, I have no idea, but I just want I want to convey that to as many people as possible. Like, hey, let's try to solve these problems. Let's not just complain about them. Let's take ownership. Let's say this is our industry and we can change it for the better. So let's do that.

That'd be my big, big goal. It's just like we would get that message to a bunch of people and say, even if it's not us, Solomon is just like encouraging people like, hey, we're trying. So that means, you know, I get messages on Instagram all the time when I talk about this stuff. You know, they say, hey, I saw this thing that you did. Or, hey, I listened to this podcast. And they're like, you inspired me just to figure out to how to change our family farming operation to last a little longer. or like, hey, I've been ranching my whole life.

And I got a message from a guy in Montana who I worked with four years ago. I forgot he even existed. And he messaged me saying, hey, I listen for you on Farm for Profit. And I just want you to know that, like, you really encourage me to keep figuring out how to make sure our 100-year farm operation can keep going in Mississippi. And I was like, man, like, how cool is it that to know that even if it's not like, it's not about me or what we do? It's just the fact that, like, hey, they see that people are trying and they see that and say, I want to keep. going as well. And if we can do that as an industry as a whole, man, like we have

such a good fighting chance. And that's what I tell people is like, let's not, if agriculture is going to, you know, become some massive government-run farm, let's at least not go down. We have this like pity mentality of like, oh man, woe is me farmer. I don't make any money. Like the industry is so hard. It's like

guys, that might be true, but it doesn't do anything to help you. Right. So let's do something to help each other, to help this industry, to push forward to solve these problems. And the last one is just what's your best advice you can give to, I don't know, your younger self or just any young person out there that is passionate about agriculture? Like what can you give them for advice? Because your journey is just so unique of not being in it and getting in it and having a purpose.

Like what advice would you give to them? Well, man, that's a big one. I know. The reason I, I mean, the selfish reason I do this every day is maybe one day I'll be able to, you know, start farming again. I farm is a hobby now. I help people. But I did have to come to the, at least where I live, I had to come to the reality is I either got to work for a farm for several decades and maybe one day they'll give me some land. And that's like a big, that's a big bet. My next option was say, get an off farm job and maybe I can buy something on a hobby farm.

And that's probably what's going to end up being is I'll buy a couple, you know, I'll be able to buy an acreage with 10 acres and I can buy an old 40-20 and I can just farm sweet corn, which sounds like a blast. Like that's honestly like I'm busy enough. that's probably what I'm going to have to do, and I would love the opportunity to do that. I would tell anyone who wants a farmer once to get into this industry, like, guys, it's not impossible, and you have to, you have to accept the fact that, like, it's going to be hard. I tell me that all the time. You're going to have to work hard. You're going to have to do uncomfortable things.

What I always encourage people is, there are old farmers out there who do not have kids to pass farms onto. And I'm, I kid you not, it could be as, like, you could go to the yellow pages in a small town and literally just start calling people. It sounds impossible, but it can be done. I have one of my wife's best friends' husbands. He is taking over several thousand acres of farmland south of Des Moines from a guy that he met through an Iowa State program

because he wanted to farm. He went to Iowa State for farming. He has a full-time job working in ag tech, but he wants to farm. So he has been working for this guy, basically for free for years, and they've signed a contract where upon the passing of this older gentleman, the church, this guy,

the older gentleman goes to is going to get 10% of his land and another 90% is going to go to this other guy. That's pretty cool. And it's, it sounds outrageous and it's, I'm not saying it's impossible. It is a rare occurrence. But man, I have, I have a guy that if I wanted to move to Montana right now would give me a portion of his ranch because he has no kids to pass it on to. Like, they are out there, spend enough time in this industry, you'll meet people like that. So what I would tell people is go find a job as a farm hand, learn to work hard, learn to do things you're uncomfortable with. and find the farmer who is not old and grouchy and is willing to have grace with you.

Like I tell that people all the time. Like don't find the 56 year old guy. Find the 30, 40 year old guy who might still not own the whole farm but needs help. You know, I learned so much from Tyler, the guy I used to work for. And I look back and like, man, a lot of guys don't have the patience to put up with that. But there are people who care enough and need the help enough that they're willing to put up with it. You know? And so it isn't impossible.

Don't let yourself believe that. do something about it. Yeah. Well, man, that's pretty good. That's real good. We really appreciate you coming on, man. It was a great conversation. For you guys, if you want to find out more about Atlas and what Clayton's up to,

or can they find you? I'm Clayton.atless on Instagram and TikTok. My business partner is Neil Denton Farms on Instagram and TikTok, and then our websites, AtlasMedia Solutions.net. Feel free to reach out to me. I'm not good at Instagram message. I don't spend a ton of time on social media, which is funny because I run a social media company. But I do try to respond to people if you have questions or you want to like literally if you want to call me like I am an open book.

Like I've had people call me after going on things like this who just want to talk through ideas they have or like I'm an open book and I want to be as much of a resource for anyone as possible. Like if you have questions, just ask, you know, that I tell people that's all the time. It's not that hard to get a hold of people. Like most people will respond to your met. Most people who have 100,000 followers will respond to you on Instagram still. It might take a few weeks, and it might not be a super in-depth conversation, but at the very least, I try to go through all of my messages and have some sort of response for people.

So reach out. Awesome. Well, I really, we really appreciate it, Clayton. Guys, if you got any value from the show, share it out with the people you know. Leave a review on Spotify or Apple. If you want some meat, farmagrade.com, use code barn talk. And we'll see you back here next week for another episode.