Barn Talk - The Battle for Service: The Disconnect Between Decision-Makers and Customers in Agriculture

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Welcome to Barn Talk! What happens at the barn, stays in the barn, but not today! We’re letting it all out. We have some interesting topics to discuss. From the lack of customer service and the disconnect between decision-makers and customers to the challenges of finding qualified workers, we'll be delving into the issues plaguing the agriculture industry. Tork and Sawyer share their personal frustrations with the lack of knowledge and professionalism they've encountered in the industry, making us question the future of agriculture and who will fill the labor gaps. But it's not all doom and gloom. We'll also be bringing you a market update, covering everything from grain prices to livestock and even the latest in cryptocurrency. And of course, we'll be sharing some exciting news from the Farm Progress Show, including conversations about technology and the evolving landscape of farming.  Buy Our Pork From Our Farm ➱ https://farmergrade.com Barn Talk Merch! 👇🏻 https://www.thislldo.co/  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    ------------------------------- ***PLEASE NOTE*** Barn Talk is a significant break from the typical content viewers have come to expect from This’ll Do Farm. Please be advised that we will be exploring a wide variety of topics (some adult-themed) and our younger viewers (and their parents) should be advised that some topics will be for mature audiences only. ⚠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 through our content is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented on this podcast without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional, professional broker or financial advisory. Understand that you are using any and all Information available on or through this website at your own risk. RISK STATEMENT– The trading of Bitcoins, alternative cryptocurrencies, NFTs, individual stocks, etc. has potential rewards, and it also has potential risks involved. Trading may not be suitable for all people. Anyone wishing to invest should seek his or her own independent financial or professional advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Dad just got back from the Farm Progress Show, and he's got all kinds of news and reports and a few observations to tell us. So we're going to dive into that today. but before we do you guys know the drill pay the fee if you get any value from the show share it out your friends family people co-workers whoever you got in your circle

the more that you guys do that the better the show can grow better guests we can have on the more podcasts we can make it's just good for everybody it's kind of the ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show feel free to leave a review on spotify or apple you can subscribe to us on youtube um if you got any questions that you want to to ask us for us to answer on the show, you can submit your questions at barn talk show at gmail.com or you can comment your questions on our YouTube podcast videos, our Q&A YouTube videos. You can comment your questions in the comment section. That's where we'll get them.

So we appreciate every one of you guys that has been supporting us. We're almost up to 110,000 subscribers on YouTube. So this thing's going, going pretty quick. and we couldn't, can't do any of this without you guys. So just wanted to say that before we get started. We were blown away with the support, and it truly means a lot to us. Apparently, Barn Talk is like a horrible auto accident. You want to look away, but you just can't.

You just can't. Just can't do it. It's too entertaining. I think that's mostly you, that you make that. I make it entertaining. Yeah. I think people are just in awe. of what a high functioning, challenged individual I am.

I think people are just in awe how aggressive, aggressively, how aggressive my potty mouth is. I got a good potty mouth. People still can't get over the fact that I say the word fuck, but. You do swear a fair amount. Yeah. I blame myself for that, but I'm just, I'm a product of my environment growing up.

and my father worked in profanity the way that other artists works and say oils or clays so he was I stole that line out of Christmas story but it's my favorite line in there so my dad um he kind of had an older ego because he was a pretty quiet man and didn't raise his voice very much. He could pretty much keep all of us boys in line just by his look. If he took his wide black framed glasses and moved him down or heaven forbid took him off and looked at it and gave you the finger. But when we worked with the pigs, I mean, he had some doozies. In fact, he had some doosies that I probably of not even comfortable sharing because in the politically correct world that we live in today, there are certain countries in the world that were represented in his,

in his tirades that probably would not be, probably would not come off very easy. But anyway, so I inherited it and then somehow I transferred it to Sawyer and I think I somewhat magnified it. That or just going to public school and hanging around some of the amazing friends of mine that I had when I grew up. We had some good times. But I've said it many times before. Yes, I could do better. But at the end of the day, do you guys want my authentic self or do you want me to be fake? Because I'll tell you what, this is what you get if you were sitting across the table from me at a dinner table. I drop the F-bomb. I cuss. I cuss. I just do. And, you know, maybe I'll get better over time.

time, maybe I'll get better when I have little young ones running around. Be better. And I probably should get better. Or your mother will put the hurt on you. This is who I am, so love it or hate it. You're pretty civil at a well, at a high level dining experience. You're very articulate and restrained. However, at your, the local bar over a goodie basket, you can get kind of passionate.

Yeah, I can't. That's how you are here. I can. I am. There's nothing wrong with that. What are your observations? Or do you got a market update first? I got a market update because I feel like I should.

Market update, courtesy of Cats Grain in Washington, Iowa. And on the Cats Grain website, it's that time of year. I think the headline today was if you're trying to figure out how, if you need to sell your crop right out of the field but you want to reown it, call John Griner and he'll tell you how to finagle that so that you can get the cash you need and then speculate. So I don't know anything about that, but that's the hot topic today. Corn 479 locally, 519 at Eddieville. Yeah, 519 at Eddieville, I think that's by the 10th and 482 on the board. Beans 1369, and that's the September contract. 13,000. 13,000.

58 at Burlington and 1445 at Cargill and Cedar Rapids or Quincy. So you can either drive to Illinois or you can drive in Cedar Rapids and sit in line for hours on end to get that price. Whatever trips your trigger. We eat 595 beanmeal $412 a ton. That's the September contract. And I'm a little hazy. I'm assuming that we're probably going off the October contract. And if you're doing that, bean meal is eerily close to getting under $400 a ton. I think it's like 402 for October. So that would be been a long time since bean meal will have been below $400. And it might not get there. Who knows? It's very dry. So beans may rally from here. Hogs $83. Once again, that is the September contract. I should have, I probably should have flipped to October because October 7,000.

cattle 180 feeder cattle 251 crude oils $86 that is off the October contract Bitcoin scrambled back to 26,000 and I had some good conversations at Farm Progress Show with people that enjoy our podcast they like when we talked about crypto. We haven't talked about crypto in a long time and the reason for that if you don't have any crypto is because it has not done shit. It just is, set, there was a lot of, there was a lot of hoopla because a bunch, and we talked about this, a bunch of these hedge funds that have been just, oh, just bagging on crypto for, you know, the last two years, they just woke up one day and said, yeah, he, I think we're going to, yeah, I think we're going to have a, I think we're going to have a Bitcoin fund. And now they're all

about it. And we got a big rally out of that. And then it fizzled out. And then it fizzled out. interest rates and unemployment and housing and everything else in our illustrious economy is weighing heavy even on crypto so uh bitcoin i think got down like i want to say it might have got down below 25 000 i i don't pay as close attention to it as i should but then it rallied back got up 27 000 it's floating right about 26 000 this is a long uh by the time you see this the long weekend will be over so I don't know where it'll be but it it just hasn't done much I wish we could do an episode about it but there's not really anything to talk about Tesla two hundred and forty five dollars they dropped the price of the model Y and the model S by like $15,000 you can buy a model X long

range for like $78,000 I thought you said S yeah they dropped it on the S too but the X is cheaper uh probably because the sales aren't as strong on the X but you can get a long range X for like 78,000. To put that in perspective at the high point of the whole coming out of COVID shortage of everything, a long range X was like 95, 96,000 base price. So Elon, he's out for blood. I mean, he's cutting it. They just did that for you.

Torque, torque. Buy me. Buy me. So what's the cyber truck going to be then? Oh, geez. Don't get me started. I hate the fucking cyber truck. I'm sorry.

It's going to look good with that. Dad loves cyber. Dad wants a cyber truck. I don't know why. Because I want to put that American flag rep with wrap on it with the screaming eagle. You might as well just get a buffalo horn, just long horn, just put it right on the front. Well, I think I could. I think I could pull that off.

I think it'd be a beautiful thing. I like my Jeep, though. The Jeep, the Jeep. The Jeep made the track all the way to Decatur, Illinois, and back like a champ. I love that thing. I don't even hear the wind noise anymore. Gold, $966 a share. That's, or an ounce, that's getting up there.

I don't know what the high over the last couple years has been on gold, but it's getting all you gold bugs out there that have held it on, you might be getting ahead now. Silver, on the other hand, 2217. That's it. That's it. And how are the crops, Sawyer? It's getting pretty dry around here. We're getting close, I think. We're getting closer and closer. I think middle of, what do you think, middle of September is when we'll probably start going, second or third week of September. Last year, we started on the 22nd of September, and this corn is, we haven't had any rain for. It's been a while. Long time. This was a popular, popular, popular, popular. conversation at Farm Progress. A lot of people, Illinois and Iowa are kind of in the same boat.

My dear friend from Farm for Profit, Corey Hilliboo, he was telling me that he's got corn that the shanks are already starting to drop. And that's not a good sign because it's too early for that, or at least in his varieties, they shouldn't be, but they are, which means they're way short on moisture. I was noticing mine. Yesterday I was out poking around a little bit, and my ears have not started to drop yet. But today got awful windy this afternoon. It's dry, no rain in the forecast, and I think we might be losing two or three bushel a day, I would imagine on the fill because there can't be much gas left in the tank,

so it's not good. And I don't know about the beans. I'm scared to look at the bean pods because if we don't get any water, I can't imagine that there's enough juice out there to fill them to where we have good-sized beans in those pods. They might be pretty small. Yep. And I think most people are feeling that way right now.

It's going to be a weird year. I mean, people are, I don't know, I think it's been people have started out the year when they were planting. it was so dry. They were scared. They were worried. Some people had to just replant or tear everything up because they, and they couldn't even replant because it was still so dry.

And so you had some of that. And then people that did get rain, they got to this point, and now it's looking a little rough again. So I don't know. I don't know what it's going to be this year. I don't know what the supply is going to end up being. What do you think? You think we're going to have good prices next year?

You think we're going to be able to, you always say the American farmer can oversupply when they need to over supply when the prices are good. We can always overproduce. I think the thing that's interesting is, you know, the crop tour went through and through Illinois, I was really surprised at how good the numbers they had coming out of that because I was expecting a lot worse. and it's kind of a it's kind of a crap shoot i don't know where we'll be and i think for some well here's here's my worst i don't know if you'd say it's the worst case scenario or not because you always want to raise a crop the last thing you want is to have a crop fail that you don't you got to go out there and harvest it for and it's crap but the second worst thing is that you're yield is just high enough that you don't hit your trigger for any crop insurance. Because as I look into 24, I think about if you're somebody in your rent ground or you've got, you know, you've got an operating line

of credit. Your interest rates going up. Your yield is just right to the low side to where you're not triggering your crop insurance, which you paid for, you paid for crop insurance. You're not going to collect anything, but you're not getting that top line yield. So then your input costs are all higher for next year and your interest rates higher for next year. I think that is going to be tough on a lot of guys. And I don't know. I don't know whether we get through harvest and then we find out that we don't have what we thought we had and prices increase to where, you know, that helps everybody out or whether we stick with if we're close to what the guess is and we just kind of muddle through.

Well, how about Brazil? What's Brazil? Everybody always mentions, well, what's Brazil's harvest looking like? What's that going to be? Well, I think it's been, I think it's been tracking about what they thought it was going to be. and they got a little bit of rain. They got three quarters of an inch of rain down there, which when they say, you know,

that they got three quarters of an inch of rain, well, that's like here. Did they get three quarters of an inch of rain across the whole area? Or did they get three quarters of an inch in two counties or two areas? I don't know, but it sounds like planning for their next crop is right on schedule. So I don't know. And the other thing that's interesting is what's their cost of fertilizer? Because they get, the majority of their fertilizer comes from Russia and Ukraine, if I'm right, on this.

And I really thought that they would be struggling both to get supply and what they had to pay for it. because I can't imagine that you're getting a consistent supply of fertilizer coming out of anywhere, Russia, Ukraine, Europe, any of that. And so I don't know. I don't know how that plays into their input costs and supply and whether they're going to have what they need, but there hasn't been any stories about it. So I guess I'm assuming if there isn't a story, it must be fine. So once again, at the end of the day, we could speculate.

We could speculate for another 20 minutes. A thousand percent could. But I guess we'll know when we know. Exactly. And the wheels will probably start turning here at this will do farm. Here in a few weeks, I would say. As long as we can make the payments. Yep.

It's all it matters. Wear my worn out work boots. I met a guy at Farm Progress. and we were talking about he had on a kind of an inside joke because I guess he wears the shit out of his work boots but I told him that was a good plan just keep those old work boots so that when you went to see your banker he said his banker always felt sorry for him because when he had when he deried when he was a dairy guy he never had time to go to town to get boots so like when he did go to town he'd go to the bank he'd always be wearing these boots that were like duct

and he said it did work out pretty well because the banker just looked at me and he felt sorry for me and he's like well can you pay the fucking interest I think I can so might have to borrow his boots that's a good strategy I guess might have to strap that shit on Brad whatever it works yeah yeah farm credit they're heartless though I don't think they care they'll steal your boots I guess they'll take it right for you'll use that as collateral I guess I don't know well we'll move on to the farm progress show I had a lot of I had a lot of I don't know I had a lot of I don't a lot of fun at the Farm Progress Show. That's sarcasm.

I actually didn't end up going to the Farm Progress Show. I planned on going, but then I ate something that I wasn't supposed to eat. I got food poisoning, and I'm not going to go into much detail, but there's only two ways that you feel that. Either it comes up or it goes out through your bottom. And so one of those two ways it was just coming out, and I could. I thought it would be a terrible idea to drive Illinois, so I decided to add, you're going to have to solo this one, go to farm progress. I was a little disappointed, but it was probably best.

But I'm good now. I feel better. I got on antibiotics. I feel okay, so that's good. But, man, food poisoning sucks. I don't recommend. I don't recommend. I only had to explain.

Because let's face it, when you get to see, uh, barn talk or this will do farm in person. The question when you see me is, where's Sawyer? I don't think, do you ever get the question? Where's your dad? Oh, I do. I do. All right. Well, that makes me feel better. But anyway, everybody wanted to know where Sawyer was. And, you know, what do you say? So I just said, well, Sawyer's sicker than a dog and he's officing from the smallest room in his house. And you could tell the guys, you could tell the guys from the Northern Midwest, from the southern Midwest because some of them boys, they had to really sit and think about it for a minute. Well, I'm going to.

And they got it. I'm going to be honest. When I first heard you say that, I didn't know what you meant there at first either. And then I got it. He's like, what's the smallest room in the house? I'm like, uh, bathroom. Yeah. Bathroom.

Yep. Yep. So don't feel bad if you didn't get that because I didn't at first either. Well, I'm trying. I'm trying to make people work for it. Yep. Uh, it was a good. time so i went over on tuesday i wasn't there for the first day i got over there about i don't know

three o'clock and um thank you very much to the boys at farm for profit uh they put on they they hosted a um what do you call that a round table or a uh a discussion there was about six of us there in the sukeup booth and that was put on by perk the propane education research council got that all out gosh they put it on and kudos to them that was great a great bunch of people and i really enjoyed it and met a lot of great people and then uh i got to think i got to think and make sure i don't screw up his i got to think up his screw up his number chris schick so there was an after party farm for profit put on an after party on wednesday night at Chris Schick's shop, and I have to say, I have a little bit of shop envy.

Oh, God. That thing is nice. Holy Mother Mary. Clinton, Illinois is where that fine guy's from. And there was a great group of people there and met a lot of people and talked to a lot of people, which, let's face it, I like talking. So it was a good time. But I didn't come home with anything.

because the farm progress show is not geared towards my size operation. That's where you can do your manifesting, Dad. You can sit there and really look and picture yourself driving the 8RX. I did actually crawl into the 8RX. I don't usually ever get into farm equipment because then I just think, boy, that would really be nice. But I was like, well, shit, I haven't got anything to do after we got done shooting the deal at SUCUP. I hopped in there and I, I did manifest a little bit. I was like,

yeah, this would be, this would look really, really good with a eight row corn planter behind it. Yeah. I was just going to say, I did the turning the wheel hand gesture when I said that, but you, let's be honest, you really wouldn't be turning the wheel much. Nope. I'd have, that would have auto steer for sure. 100%. The technology is amazing and the equipment. is amazing. I think it's funny though. People, so when you came in the main gate, which would have been, I would have, I think if I'm not turned around, I think that's the, that's the west entrance to farm progress. They had a, they had a case IH tractor there, the one with the tracks on the rear wheels, and I think it was a 400. And, you know, if you threw a, if you, you know, if you

you took the badge off of that, you wouldn't have any idea what it was. You just know that was a case. And same way with John Deere, if you took the emblem off of either 9 series or their 8 series or their 7 series, you wouldn't know what it was. And I don't know when it will change, like for your generation, but for my generation and anybody older than me, I don't feel like there's any attachment to speak of of all of this new equipment like there was for you know if you're a guy and you've got uh if you got a 4440 or you got a 48 40 or a 49 60 um it's a distinct they all looked a little different the hood was a little different this was different that was dirt different and somebody just driving by you could look at that running the field and go oh that's a fill in the

blank. And I think the most, I don't know if it was the most viewed, but one of the busiest displays at the show was there was an old, I want to say it was a GP, John Deere GP. Somebody will correct me in the comments, because it might not have been, but I know it wasn't a G. And I but it was basically original. It was an old John Deere tractor. And good Lord, there were people in there. Every time I walked by, there was people in there looking at that because people have a connection to that.

And then the other booth that I thought was really interesting and pretty neat was Agco, they did a really good job of their gleaner display. they had a couple of gleaners in there. One of them they had wrapped, and it was like a heritage edition. And you know what? I think the best thing that ever happened to gleaner combines is Tony Reed.

Tony Reed? Yeah. Yeah, because it's like him hating on the gleaners has made the gleaners. Like, that's the best free publicity they ever had. Yeah. Was Tony just going off on him? Yep.

And if I had a, I bet you there was four or five people that I just overheard sitting in the SUCup booth and somebody asked him, you know, where are you going from here? And they're like, oh, we're going to a gleaner display. We're going to go over there and we're going to go over there and see if Tony reads over there letting the air out of a gleaner or, you know, knife in a gleaner or whatever. I mean, it's hilarious because he has made, like he has made such an impression, I don't know if that's the right word but anyway there was a hell of a lot of people free publicity is the it is what is what do you say bad publicity is still good publicity at the end of the day yeah yeah uh

publicity at the end of the day doesn't matter if it's good or bad just as long as they're talking about you yep that's gleanier right now and and let's all agree on uh tony for president Tony read for president growing corn yep uh they were giving away t-shirts over there somebody did a bunch of them and i saw a pile of of kids and people running around with a Tony Reed for president t-shirt. That's funny. We got to get them on the podcast. Huge crowd. Farm Progress doesn't give out the numbers, I don't think, for their attendance.

But they did come out and say that they estimated that their numbers were up 6% from a year ago. And I saw somewhere that they thought, like last year they had 150,000 people. so I don't know whether that's, you know, spot on or not, but I will tell you that Wednesday, it was packed. Madhouse. And it was packed, and now I'm going to bitch a little bit. I don't know what it is about our society that we have decided

that we should just accommodate every freaking person that wants a scooter or a golf cart. I mean, you couldn't go anywhere over there without like double checking to see if some dumb fuck was going to run you run your ass over in a golf cart. And these weren't people that needed a golf cart either. This is just when you walked in the gate, there was some outfit that was renting out golf carts. They were renting out scooters. And I'm like, it's the same way at the state fair. Holy shit.

I mean, there's a pile of people. And I don't know. Maybe that's okay. But at the same time... Got to get your steps in. Yeah, you got to get your steps in. I mean, you're not enabling everybody to just... I don't know.

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ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. No, I agree. We're going to end up like Wally. We talk about that all the time. We're going to end up like the Wally movie if everybody

just goes to the scooters. everybody just says fuck it i ain't walking i'm going to get on a scooter it's a hell of a deal i'm not a scooter person i haven't i haven't crossed that bridge i don't i hope i don't ever have to hey thanks for sticking with us if you ever wanted to know what we do the rest of our time come on over to our youtube channel this will do farm and tell us that you came from barn talk we appreciate every one of you now let's get back to it uh i did the farm for profit podcast uh it's just me so we've been trying to get that set up for both of us to do it about two, three, four times that it's never worked because something has come up every time. And we almost didn't shoot it. And I told

them, I said, it's up to you boys, whether you want to do it or not. And they said, well, you're here. Let's just do it. And so that'll be out sometime. It's not as high quality as if I would have had Kingpin with me, but it's somewhat entertaining. So give that a listen when you get a chance. Nothing cheap over there. I can tell you that. Nothing cheap. I mean the, the technology that's out there and the innovation that's being done is amazing. But you got to be rolling some acres or have one hell of a land base to make that all work, I think. And we're not quite there yet. We're not quite there yet. Nope. I got a hell of a good fucking podcast, though. We do, by God. And a nice barn. We got a nice haylock. I know that. Somebody commented and said, farmers with an AC unit in their barn,

they must not be real farmers. Well, I guess we're not real farmers. Yeah, because let's face it, if you're watching the video version, nobody wants to see Tork sweaty. No.

That's not pretty sight. We're just trying to help you guys. Yeah. Much more visually appealing. I'm pretty sure our subscriptions would have never hit what they had had I been sweaty all the time. We're raising pigs.

we're not trying to be them. Look at you. There you go. That's fantastic. The purpose of this podcast, we're finally to the purpose. And I had kind of a hot, this kind of became a hot button issue for me

because the week before I left to go to Farm Progress, I ran into the names, the names of the individuals and the companies have been changed to protect the innocent, but you all know who you are, so I will say that. I ran into a guy that works for the company that I buy a lot of ag products from,

and he asked me if I, if anybody talked to me about contracting, and I said, no, nobody has. And traditionally, when you wanted to lock in a contract, price on what they're dealing, you would work with the local, well, you'd work with him. And corporate had decided that they wanted a better control of that, so they were going to have somebody from the main office that was going to do all, reach out to all these people about getting their contracts. Well, nobody reached out to me. And here we are, you know, the first of, the first of September, I got back from the show, nobody, nobody contacted me. So I stopped down

at the local office and actually that's not true. I called, I called down the local office and I said, hey, you know, what's the deal? And they were like, all right, we'll get somebody to get a hold of you. And I get this phone call from this guy. I didn't know who he was. And he had no idea what he was call me who I was or how much of the product that I needed. He just knew that I was upset and that I needed to, he needed to talk to me. And he literally said to me, he's like, yeah, hey, this is so-and-so, what, what do you need? And I, I will admit, I did not handle that very well. I got, I got kind of pissed because I thought to myself, we have come to to the point in the ag world with these co-ops and these uh these ag distribution companies and

you know people that are selling farmers products that all of the decision makers are so removed they've cannibalized all of the local offices that when somebody calls you they have no connection with you. They don't know what your business is. They don't know who you are. And it's almost like they're doing you a favor by taking your order is basically what they're doing. And I just laughed. When he said that to me, I just started laughing. And I said, I said, it is a sad day when this is the conversation that you have to have. to get, you know, product ordered. You don't even know who I am.

Do you even know where I live? And he apologized, and it isn't his fault because the guy I was talking to wasn't even the, he wasn't even the manager of this division. He was a guy that was far enough up the food chain that he could do what needed to be done, but he wasn't actually the guy that I was supposed to talk to. to because the guy I was supposed to talked to ain't worth of shit. And everybody knows it, but yet

somehow he has this job. So I told him what I needed, and he said he'd email me a contract and all that. And I know more than hung up the phone, and the manager of my local office calls me. And he says to me, he's like, okay, he's like, I'm ready. He goes, let me have it. And, I didn't let him have it, but we had a really, we had a really pointed conversation. It got me thinking a lot about this. And you've heard us talk about the problem with labor in every part of our society, and, you know, who's going to do the work, who's going to raise the pigs, who's going to farm, all of that? Well, who's going to plumb your LP tank when you add a dryer, or better yet, who's going to set the dryer? who's going to get you, you know, who's going to set up your deaf tank? Who's going to change,

who's going to come change the filters on your fuel tank if you don't own it if the co-op owns it? Who's going to fix whatever. I don't care what it is. Because this guy and I talked about all the people that work at my local office. The woman that answers the full, phone and let's face it, she runs the show because she's the one that's organized. My wife always says, if we go to an event that was poorly organized, she says, obviously, this was run by men. And if it goes well, there's probably a woman involved. And I can attest to that because in the groups that I'm involved in, there's usually a woman that takes care of, makes it all work, and the men are just there to, you know, fold out chairs or whatever. But she's 70 years old.

the guy that runs the service department for the LP he's over 70 years old the next guy that's in there he's like 58 years old the guy that fixes the grain set up the head the head of the service guy for the grain he's like 55 56 years old there's another guy on the LP that's like 55 56 years old

and he just went down the line the guy was talking to the manager he's 58 and the company they work for, they have hired nobody, nobody to mentor them, nobody to shadow them. They're not training anybody to do these jobs. And this outfit that I'm talking about, when I was selling hog buildings, this problem has been going on for a long time because when I sold hog buildings

and I would sell a building a lot of times, we would get them to go plumb the LP in the building, and it might be in Missouri. It might be 120 miles from where we live. And the reason we did it is because these guys would call and say, well, my gas guy, he brings my gas, but he doesn't know how to do any of that. He doesn't know how to plumb any of this stuff. You got anybody that can plumb these buildings for me. And we would say, we would call them and have them do it.

And I mean, they charged to do it. But you don't have any choice. because they were one of the few people that are doing it. Well, now then, when these guys retire, who's going to do it? And then it got me thinking, you go to your local equipment dealer and need parts. Every equipment, I don't care what color it is, you go in there and you know what they do now? They have a screen turned around pointing to you because the guy that's running the parts, he has no fucking idea.

He doesn't know what the hell it is. When you tell him that you need this or you need that, you're lucky if he can get you close to the exploded view of the part of the tractor or the part of the finisher or the part of whatever you're looking at where the part you need is actually at and then you tell him,

oh, number 16 right there, that's what I'm looking at. Well, I was a kid. I could walk into the John Deer's, store in Washington because my dad sent me and say, hey, I need the bolt that goes through the A-arm on a 40-20 John Deere, you know, right above this or that. Or something simple. I needed a fuel filters for 40-20, or I needed this, or I needed that. And the two guys that worked in there, they'd worked in there since they were in high school. And they knew it. They knew the part. Not only did they know the part,

they knew what tractor we had, so we walked in the door, they already knew what they were going to be looking at. But all of these companies, the equipment manufacturers or the equipment dealers, they're the exact same way. They have spent no money hiring people to just follow those guys around.

Like, they should have started 10 years ago or 20 years ago, I don't know, and just said, all right, just follow this guy around and just do what he does. But the flip side of that is these co-ops and a lot of these companies in ag, when I think about being in the 90s and the 80s, they didn't have fancy corporate offices. They didn't have middle management.

Like they didn't have all these people. they had a lot of people out in the field that actually did shit. They did not have bureaucrats. It's just like government. And now then you have these co-ops, and they sit around and they got oodles of people working for them, and they can't make any money. So do you know what they do? They consolidate.

They say, oh, okay, well, we're going to take the office in this little town and the office in this little town and the warehouse, and we're going to consolidate them all into one spot. And then if we need anything over there, we'll send somebody over there. But there ain't going to be anybody there all the time because we can't afford that because we can't make any money. But we can have however many people sitting out in whatever little town where corporate headquarters is and they're crunching the numbers and they're telling them, well, we ain't

making any money. Well, boy, we need to consolidate more. And I mean, I'm just bitching. is what I'm doing. And I don't have the answer. Well, I'm just, I'm trying to, I'm following what you're saying. It just sounds like a lot of them, they don't have any perspective of what's going on with the actual trade of the product. Because a lot of them are making, the people that are making the decisions for the product are the ones that are sitting in a city at a headquarters.

and all they see is numbers, and they don't think about the next generation coming to follow the ones that's going to be retiring because they're just sitting there looking at the numbers. And now you've taken all the decision-making power out of all the local communities that provide all the services to all the farmers and all the people that need the services.

And, yeah, that's how you get pissed off farmers, and that's how you have a lot of fucking problems, because if the guy that's in the local community that is serviced in the local community isn't the one that's, you know, scheduling what you need when you need it, there's just no connection. There's no know-how of what your operation looks like. There's no relationship at all. Versus when they were doing it here in the local community, they knew how many, they knew our operation like the back of their hand. They knew us like the back. like they know us very well.

They knew where they could drive in. They knew where they could drive out. They knew what our driveways look like. They know everything. They know everything. And it's like that is being just destroyed. And it's not just ag. It's kind of everything.

But it's good point. It's like, what are we going to do when all these people retire? And they get their heads. What's going to end up happening is all those people are going to retire and nobody's going to know how to do nobody's going to know how to do fucking anything. Like they don't know how to do shit at the office right now

and all they're thinking about is numbers, but when the driver, the, everybody in those local offices is gone that's older, that knows what they're doing and they're gone. You get the new generation, if you can hire them to get in there, what are they,

they're not going to know how to do anything at all. Yeah. And so you're going to just have an absolute mess. And I mean, you're kind of what you were talking about with the parts. I mean, you're kind of there, and they're trying to use technology to make it better. Yeah. Give you an iPad so you can select it, but.

Right. Well, and, you know, I'm coming to you to buy parts because you're the expert. Yeah. Like, you handle the parts every day. I'm not necessarily, I mean, farmers are probably more, they're semi-mechanics. They want to say they're semi-mechanical, you know, though they work on shit. Some of them are. Some are really, really good.

I wouldn't classify us as great mechanics when it comes to farm equipment. So we need all the help we could get. But yeah, I'm coming to you and you should know the fucking part on the tractor because this is what you do every day. Yeah. Well, and the other part of it is you've seen this at a lot of these dealerships where they will give you a discount. They will give you a discount if you find your part online and order it online so that they don't even have to, they don't even have to find it. and just so I will put this out there too, I'll throw this in there for perspective. What really blew me away about this was, so I was talking about LP, and the fact that the decisions and the

contracts were not being made and offered and signed and taken care of locally blew my mind. because I asked this guy, I said, within your system, what county has the largest propane market? And I already knew the answer because, as you know, the county we live in is one of the biggest hog counties in state Iowa. So I had a pretty good idea. And he said to me, he goes, well, our county is the biggest, biggest market for propane within our system. and not by like a few thousand gallons, by like a half a million gallons. So you have the biggest county within the company that you're within the system

and you're not allowing them, the local community, the local office, to write the contracts. And I just laughed. I just am like, I'm dumbfounded by that. But it's just another example.

Customer service is just there isn't any. Customer service is terrible. And it's not going to get any better. And me complaining about it isn't going to make any better. But I just have to wonder out loud, like, where does this end up as far as, well, I can tell you, for me, this is where it ends up for me. I think that there is no incentive for you to be brand loyal for any commodity that you deal with on your farm. And by that I mean, if I can't get decent service and nobody cares about my business, then the next logical step is for me to make sure that I own all my tanks and maybe I just put in a bullet.

and then I just buy LP and I'll just have to figure out like we'll just have to figure out if you know if there's a line that needs to be put in or one that leaks or whatever you're just going to have to figure it out because

you're not going to be able to count on your supplier to give you any service and I mean that's kind of where you see that already there's some guys out there that cash and carry you know they're not they have no they have no brand loyalty when it comes to chemicals they're just shopping for the lowest price and part of that is because there's some guys out

there that that's just how they're wired you know they don't see value in or they've had a bad customer uh a bad customer support experience to where they're like well screw this i'm just going to buy the lowest cost, whoever the supplier is. But when you go down that route, the downside of that is you quit employing all these people at the local level. So that's money that used to be in your local community that's now being shipped somewhere else because they can't even staff, They can't staff that office. They can't offer you any customer, uh,

customer support. My thing is, it's not, okay, if they say this is the, the biggest county for them by mil, by half a million gallons, it's not a fucking money problem.

It's not a money problem. They're making fucking money here. No doubt, hand over fists, they're making money. This is their highest traffic. They get the most volume here. and I know this is just an

specific example for us but that's just pure stupid stupidity that's dumb that's an ideology of well we're just going to we're going to make it so that the major office we focus on all the numbers we work we sign get all the contracts

we do all the paperwork and the local office and around the country where they're just going to deliver it and handle that and they don't I just I just feel like that isn't that isn't a necessary like, oh, we got to consolidate because we got to, because it's a money problem.

Well, the money problem. It's just pure stupidity. It's stupid. The money problem is they have other, they have other areas that aren't, that aren't making the money. And they take, they take the best of what they have and they pool, they're pooling it all together. It's all flowing back to a central office.

And, but they're fighting the same. I'm not saying it's all their fault in the fact that, obviously it's hard to find people however what i learned from my conversation with my local guy was that you know he's trying all the time to get the money to hire extra people or hire somebody to be that guy that's like the floater that learns what's going on and they won't do it because they say they can't afford it. Well, if you can't afford that now, what are you going to do when your best install,

service guy is gone? And then all that knowledge is gone, and you've got to start from scratch. And I think that's where we are with a lot of parts of rural America, and it's not just, I mean, we had Mike Miller on here talking about plumbing. And, you know, he said,

I'd hire five plumbers tomorrow if I could find them, but I'm not going to find them. I'm lucky if I can get somebody. I'm lucky if I get somebody that is willing to learn. I'll start with that because I sure is hell I'm not going to find anybody. If I find a plumber that's unemployed, there's probably a reason he's unemployed. And I just say my takeaway from it all and maybe the solution is, there's a lot of opportunity for disruption in every industry.

Like household names that you think are never going to go anywhere. guys there are some dumb ass people that get put into these corporations big or small that can fuck up a legacy of a brand and do some dumb shit and they don't they don't they don't care about the little things they don't they don't do the small things that make make the the customer feel like like we felt like before they don't do those small things so they don't think they're important And like those small things is how you separate yourself, especially in today's society. Like companies that do the small shit that make you feel good as a customer, that's so rare. That's so rare.

That does not happen. And when you do find one that does that shit, it makes you want to stay and continue to do business with them. There is a huge opportunity for customer service. Yeah. I mean, I'm all about innovating and bringing technology. into an industry that might not be known for it's for using technology. I'm all about that, but also stick to what's made that industry like good. Like I feel like ag and these little co-ops and what's made the, you know, these local ag companies with that offer these products good.

The one good thing that they've always done is service and taking care of, of the customers inside their community. You always felt, you know, you always felt pretty good about your LP guy or where you're getting your seed most of the time, you know, those guys take care of you. But more and more of this consolidation and more of this mindset of we're going to have one big office and we're going to take away from all these small towns. I think that's in multiple industries, but I think that's taking away what's made what they offer good.

it's taken away from what they've done really well for a long time. It's taken away from that. And it's sad. So they shouldn't. And I know they're fighting that fight, but you've got to kind of give and take and like think about what do we what do we do good. How can we advance and make things more efficient but not take away from that what people really value? Well, to your point, you know, we want to invest in technology. but there's still no replacement for investing in people. Good people. Because you are, for them to be able, the example I gave, for them to be able to be relevant,

they have got to invest in some people because they're like literally a few years away from not being able to service the accounts they have because they have no people that have the skills to do the service that got them the business to start with. Because if I can't get service on the equipment I have, then I'll just go to whoever's selling the gas the cheapest. Because at that point, it makes no difference. Right. And you don't want to be in that. You do not, the last place you want to be, and we can all speak to this, because we're in a commodity business where we sell a product that we can't differentiate from anybody else's product. That's why we started

Farmer grade. Because if you, the biggest, the fastest race to the bottom is make your business, make your product a commodity. Because then nobody gives a shit because if you're not doing anything for me, I'm going to go buy it from the guy that can give me the cheapest price. And if you decide, okay, well, I'm going to be the guy with the cheapest price. Well, good luck. Good luck because that is a race to the bottom. Yep. So. Yeah, I don't really have anything else.

I just think if you're a young guy out there, there's a lot of opportunity, a lot of opportunity for disruption. And, you know, you can look at these legacy companies and go, man, I can never do that. Bullshit. Because it's just like the Bud Light example. You'd think Bud Light would have a smart, you know, they've been a household name for decades. and they make they've made some dumbass decisions dumbass decisions and you'd think that business would never make a dumbass decision like that they do they make dumb ass they're most companies they're just holding on they're holding on they're figuring things out just like just like small

businesses are so they they just have figured out how to grow and like you can do you can do that too and there's a lot of industries that there's a lot of disruption that that could that could happen. The easiest way to ruin a small company is grow it into a big company. Yeah. Because we said this. I don't know. You can grow it into a big company.

Just don't lose the values and the stuff that you did to become a big company. Yeah. If you turn a small company into a big company, just don't lose what made you big. What made you good, what people really liked. Because obviously if it became a big company, you sold a lot of shit. So evidently you were doing something right. Don't go away from that. You have to keep investing in people because here is a little,

this is a really good little example. I would just say it's easier to make, it's easier to cut, cut people and do, go away from what's made you great because I'm sure like, if they were staying to the standard of what made them good, all they'd have to do, that's probably the harder route because it requires more people. Yeah. But that's the thing that people like about. That's what makes customers buy their product. Well, they think they're being efficient. Yeah. That's the word I was looking for. So there's this, there's this, the false God of ag retailing is we have to be more efficient. We have to be more efficient.

and the problem is when you become when you put efficiency ahead of service and quality and the customer i mean doesn't matter how efficient you are because you cannot be you cannot increase efficiency as fast as you lose customers when you give up service and people yeah and that's a good point that's the deal but that's kind of what i was thinking very small you and I packed the boxes. You and I were packing boxes for Farmer Grade. And you're packing a lot of boxes. And it's cold in that cooler. Yep. And we, what did we do? We did a whole 227 boxes. No, but we did, we did like five boxes that didn't have something in them. Didn't we, didn't we forget to put something in. Oh, we forgot to put the ice in. Five, forgot to put the dry ice. We had like five boxes. We had this rhythm going of how we were filling them.

and then something happened. Somebody had a question in the packing room, the taping room, and like we got off, and we just put these boxes out the door, and fortunately somebody caught in there like, these boxes are light, like, what's the deal? We forgot to put the dry ice in them. And I told Sawyer, I'm like, think about when you have employees doing this, you are literally only as good as the employee that is packing that box. Yep. So when you say, you know, when I say you got to invest in people, I mean, your business is only as good. I don't care what business you're in. Your business is only as good as the employee that you hired yesterday.

Because that one person can cost you dearly. Yep. Or not having enough good people can cost you dearly. I mean, the alternative of we're just going to consolidate not hire people or hiring a shitty person, it's bad both ways. Yeah. It's bad both ways. You need people, nor guardless. I mean, it's a vicious circle because time marches on and you get a good person, that good person gets older.

Yep. And if you don't continually get new people into that company and transfer that knowledge, you constantly have to transfer that knowledge. I mean, farmers know all about that because, you know, you got to teach the next generation and the next generation is always wanting to innovate, but at the same time, you have to teach them the things that are important. Business is the exact same way. Well, and it's like you look at the food restaurant business, fast food, chick-fil-A,

for example. Service, they are the fucking best at service. They don't do, their chicken sandwich is pretty good, but is it, out of this world, the best chicken sandwich I've ever had in my life? No. But you know when you go there most of the time, you're going to get, they treat you right, they do it fast, and you're going to get a pretty decent product. Well, it's very consistent. You know what you're getting when you go there.

They do what they've always done right, and you know what you're going to get. And they do really well with hiring good people, and they do phenomenal service. And that goes a long ways. Yep. Long ways. Long ways. 100%. And here at Barn Talk, we are all about great customer service. That's right. And every day, I'm trying to get Sawyer to bring the next generation so I can mentor them

so they will be a better replacement for me. There you go. But I can only do so much. We won't cuss as much around them so they won't end up like me. You better not. Better not. so send your ring donations to P.O. Box. Yeah, so I don't know. That was kind of a different kind of episode today, guys. Wasn't Q&A, it wasn't hot topics. It was kind of a hot take.

It was just Tork's epic. It was just me raining. I just told SORRAM, I'm like, we need to do one today, and I just want to talk about this because it just, I just couldn't get out of my head. And I don't think you're wrong. I think probably a lot of guys can relate to that.

But yeah, you're going to end up just, I saw a comment on TikTok of one of our videos talking about just farmers not really being brand loyal anymore with their equipment. And I saw a bunch of comments of people just like, when they're all pretty damn similar in how they function and one's cheaper than the other, I don't give a fuck what color it is. And that's the point where it's getting to. They're all just about the same in efficiency and, you know, they're all going to have their problems, maintenance-wise. So. Well, and we, we had this conversation. We actually had, I had this conversation with a guy over the show. The equipment business is doing it too, though.

They're doing it too. They are getting away from. Good service. You know, yeah, differentiating themselves. So in our local community, there are more people that are moving, switching. colors and the reason is because we have a really strong dealer west of us they own a store west of us and south of us and there are guys that are switching uh switching colors and it's it's not because of the equipment itself it's because they they have good service they take care of what they sell

and they're good people to work with and that makes a difference they know what fucking part you're talking about all right guys well that's going to wrap it up i think if you If you got any value from the show, please share it out, pay the fee. Leave your review on Spotify or Apple. Submit your questions at barn talk show at gmail.com. Thank you guys for all your support. We love you guys and we'll see you back here next week for another episode.