About This Episode
Shay Foulk and Chris Barron mark the 400th episode, recorded April 13, 2022, then spend it on spring readiness. Barron starts with health, admitting he is 24 days into a program called 75 Hard that forces him to eat clean, and says sleep and real meals affect everything during planting. Foulk adds a habit he learned in the military: take the time to do the job right, which costs a few minutes a day and prevents the breakdowns that cost hours.
On numbers, Barron says most operations know their cost of production by spring but stop placing offers once they get busy, so he pushes making marketing decisions on rain days rather than with greasy hands. Foulk reframes delegation: you may do three things at 100 percent, but seven others get 20 or 30 percent of your attention, and someone else doing them at 80 percent frees you for the decisions only you can make.
The rest is communication mechanics. A five minute morning huddle can prevent three hours of rework; Barron once planted the wrong hybrid in the wrong field after skipping one. Foulk argues for over-communication and grace when someone calls three times to confirm. Barron's partner Jason writes the day's plan in bullet points, photographs it, and texts it to everyone. Barron closes with 2022 costs pushing 1,000 dollars an acre for corn and 700 dollars for soybeans.
“A 5-minute huddle a lot of times in the morning can fix 3 hours of something being screwed up.”
— Chris Barron
Key Takeaways
Barron puts 2022 input costs at pushing $1,000 an acre for corn and $700 an acre for soybeans.
A five-minute morning huddle can undo three hours of mistakes. Barron planted the wrong hybrid in the wrong field the year he skipped one.
Foulk's delegation math: someone else doing a task at 80 percent still beats you doing it at 30 percent while your best work waits.
Stop doing the $30 an hour work when the $300 an hour work is sitting in the office, like placing offers or building the next day's plan.
Barron's partner Jason bullet-points the daily plan, photographs it, and texts it to both planting crews so each knows what the other is doing.
Put marketing offers in before the season gets busy, not after you are already behind and covered in grease.
Full Transcript
Narrator: We are grateful that you are joining us for another episode of the Ag View Pitch, as we know that your time is very valuable. Our team at Ag View Solutions is always here for you for any questions or comments that you may have. Please feel free to reach out to us at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com. And now here is your host, Shay Foulk.
Shay
Foulk: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Ag View Pitch and a very special episode, at least for you and I, Chris. This is our 400th episode of the Ag View Pitch podcast and, uh, I think we've been doing this, what, about 3 years now, Chris?
Chris
Barron: Yeah, it's been— time flies when you're having fun, I guess. It's been a little while, but yeah, it's been good.
Shay
Foulk: I did some beer math on that last night because I think we started in April of 2019. So we've been pretty consistent doing a podcast about every 3 days. I think that's what it breaks down to. And that's kind of what our goal was, was, you know, 1 or 2 throughout the week and then the consistent market outlook as well. So You know, we've, we've tried to be pretty consistent. And, and ultimately, I think what's really driven the value and allowed us or incentivized us to continue to do this is just the people that listen to the podcast. You know, you, you listeners out there have provided great feedback, what you want to hear more of, what you want to hear less of. And Chris, I think I just wanted to start by, you know, saying thank you to everybody out there for, for what they do and what they've given us here over the last few years.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it, it's, that's why we do it because of the, the people. I mean, we just, we want to provide some perspective and, and have that conversation. It helps us too. And, and, you know, I, I guess that's our ask though, really, too, Shay, is that, you know, if, if you're listening to it, you like it, you get a lot out of it, please share it with other operations too, because it helps us if the platform grows. Makes it easier for us to do it. We don't have any sponsors or anything. We're doing it because we feel like it's the right thing to do. And it's a good way to get good marketing information out each week and then have these kind of conversations around just everything from entrepreneurship to just better business decision-making and that kind of stuff.
Shay
Foulk: Chris, it's pretty amazing to me. In early 2019, you looked at me and said, "I want to do a podcast, figure out how to do it." I said, okay. And, and so I think a week later, you know, we kicked out that first podcast. And what's really been surprising on my end is the amount of outreach that we've gotten and people that listen to this every single week that you and I maybe have never even met before. And, you know, we started it to provide value and perspective to clients and the people that we work with, and it's grown into so much more than that. Based on, you know, the need for this information. And like you said, just hopefully, hopefully providing value to people that reach out to us, whether it's, uh, you know, if we got a tool that we're sending to people or a certain topic.
There's a lot that goes on in the agricultural community that we try to focus on, on everything from Dad's Wisdom to, uh, communication and collaboration to the market outlook that we do. So, you know, I, I wanted to thank you too personally on just the, the branching out that this has kind of evolved into. I really enjoy doing the podcast, and, and I hope you do too.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, I like it a lot. I think, like I said, it forces us to pay attention to what's going on too and helps us in our own operation. But, uh, you know, I always go back to the Zig Ziglar saying, if you help enough other people get what Help enough other people get what they want, you will get what you want. And I think that that holds true. It rings true. It rang true a long time ago for me, and it still does.
Shay
Foulk: Yeah, that's awesome. So again, the ask here is if you enjoy the content, if you enjoy the perspective, if you enjoy listening to Chris and I ramble on sometimes about different things, you know, share this information. Just reach out to one person and say, hey, you know, I think you might get value out of this podcast. It's been pretty cool to see the impact that it's had. But What we want to focus on with today's podcast is just some key things to keep in mind as we head into spring fieldwork season. We're recording this here on 14th, 13th of April, should post on the 14th of April, and things are a little bit, maybe not behind, but seem a little bit more wet and a little cooler than last year. So you have some people getting a little antsy, and once the ball starts rolling here, you know, things are going to go fast.
So Chris, the first thing we want to focus on is, is just that safety, right?
Chris
Barron: Yeah, for sure. The, the funny one for me always is I'll start out with the, the safety one that, um, some years I'm pretty good at it and some years I'm not very good at it, but it's the health side of it. You know, we tend to not get enough sleep, we eat like crap, um, we eat junk, you know, donuts and Cookies and all that kind of crap's easy to get ahold of, but you know, are we eating a couple of hot meals a day that are nutritious and have actually some, you know, some, some vitamins and nutrients in it that's good. And so, you know, as we record this, I'm doing a program called 75 Hard that is forcing me to eat clean and I cannot believe how much better I feel 24 days in.
And so, you know, when we're busy as heck and a lot of stuff's going on, I mean, it's super important that we pay attention to our health and, and eat clean, try to get your rest because that affects everything, right?
Shay
Foulk: And, and the second thing is, you know, take your time doing stuff when it comes to safety. I actually just did a safety presentation this morning for a farm operation, and it's a concept that I learned through the military of taking the time, not necessarily taking your time, but taking the time. And what that means is you should always take the time to do something the right way. You know, take whatever time you need to do it right, but it doesn't mean you have to, you know, lollygag or dilly-dally in order to get the comp, you know, the task accomplished. You can do things safely and quickly.
And I think the main thing I wanted to point out with that is if you did everything like you were supposed to throughout the day, if you drove 55 miles an hour everywhere, if you took the time to properly hook up the trailer, to put the retaining pin and the hitch pin that you're pulling the wagon with, it might add up to a few minutes a day. But sometimes we get so caught up in what needs to be done and we got to get to the next thing and we got to go fast, we end up screwing something up or end up breaking something or, you know, God forbid someone gets hurt, right? So take the time, go a little slower in order to go faster. 'Cause you're gonna get through that day in a much better mood and much more safely.
Chris
Barron: Have you ever been pissed, Shay, and you're mad and then it makes everything go worse, right? Doesn't it? It's like, you know, something happens, you're frustrated, and then all of a sudden safety can go right out the window. 'Cause it's like, well, this is, I am pissed and I don't know why this happened. And you know, so I just, I think that needs to go and be mentioned too, is to manage your emotion for safety as well, right?
Shay
Foulk: I don't know if you have any flying wrenches on your farm, but we have a lot of 'em. To just come out of nowhere. So we dodge those and try to be careful. But I agree, the emotional, that's as important as that health. I mean, just that mental stress is, what are you going to do? You're going to work yourself up all day? And what does that gain you? Really nothing. You got to make decisions and manage your emotions.
Narrator: Yeah.
Chris
Barron: The last one on that one too, I think is a big one too, is just the safety of cross-training. You know, we do some kind of I'm just going to call it half-assed training sometimes with, with our employees or our part-time people, especially in the spring and fall when somebody shows up and you just, you don't have time to show them everything. So you show them what you think they need to know, and then sometimes they find out what they didn't know they should have knew. And just from a safety standpoint, that's a big one too.
Shay
Foulk: Yeah, if you want to head into the second item here, Chris.
Chris
Barron: Yep, yeah, just knowing your numbers. I think You know, right now, the big one I would say is when we go into spring and fall, a lot of times on the markets, we have a pretty good idea at this point what our cost of production is and all that stuff. And I think a lot of us are guilty of not putting offers in when we get busy. Sometimes the best time to market— and this is not marketing advice, I'm just saying that it never fails— sometimes the best time to make marketing decisions is when you're busy doing about 10 other things and your hands are greasy and and you just want to have time, make the time now, do that plan, you know, especially if, if, you know, the weather's not fit and you can't roll. I don't care if it's spring or fall and, you know, you need to have some, some offers in, do it when you're not super busy so you don't have to think about it when you are busy.
Shay
Foulk: And half of the battle there, Chris, is just having a plan in place, you know?
Chris
Barron: Yeah.
Shay
Foulk: By knowing what that number is, if you can make a plan on, you know, whether it's your marketing strategy or where you want to be on input purchasing, taking the time to track some of those variables, that can be really super important when it comes to knowing your numbers.
Chris
Barron: Yep. Yeah, the next one that I wanted to hit on, next topic, unless you had anything else on, on that, but this next topic is just knowing what you are— you do well at and what you, you're good at, and let somebody else do the other stuff. I mean, if you're not the one that maybe should be running the sprayer or the one that should be running the planter or what, you know, figure out what you do well, let somebody else do that other stuff. And, and I think that's a big one. Sometimes we feel like we need to be doing certain jobs and, and we stay in them, and sometimes we probably need to cross-train. There might be somebody that could do it better.
Shay
Foulk: And Chris, you and I have been giving a few presentations here over the last few months looking at this delegation, and it can be hard. But as a, as a manager or a leader of the operation, or even just a key member What I've asked people to think about is if you do 3 things really, really well and you focus on them and you do them 100%, that's great. But there's probably 7 things that you're giving 20% of your time to, or you're only doing it 30% as well as you could be. So when it comes to that delegation, the flip side of it is some— you can delegate that and someone might do it 80% as well as you or 90% as well as you. But it's getting done, right? And it's allowing you to focus maybe on some of this other stuff instead of, you know, being out there power washing a piece of equipment. Maybe you need to be in the office making those decisions.
And how do you, you know, the key decisions, and how do you delegate some of that in order to, you know, capitalize and keep the farm operation moving where it needs to?
Chris
Barron: Yeah, you said something that kind of goes to another topic about staying focused, which is the, you know, just paying attention to what you do also. And you mentioned the office, so like sometimes we choose to do the $30 an hour jobs because they tend to be more fun, like sitting in the tractor doing some tillage or whatever it is, versus the $300 an hour jobs which might be in the office or whatever. And so I think a lot of times, you know, I think we make pretty good decisions in the spring and fall when it's— when you're planting or harvesting, we kind of position ourselves as leaders where we need to be in the operation. But I also think, um, there's probably— it's worthy to step back and say, okay, everything I do during the day, do I need to be doing this?
Whatever it is you're doing, do I need to be the one sweeping the floor in the shop after the tillage tool left and we changed sweeps and I'm doing that for 15 minutes and cleaning some stuff up and organizing the shop? Or should I have somebody else doing that and I get in the office and you know, check on those offers, or I get in the office and, you know, get the plan ready for the next day. And, you know, or maybe scout that field or two ahead of the planter or whatever. Paying attention to what we're doing a lot of times would make us a lot of money. But sometimes I think we, we naturally do habitually what we want to do or what we like doing first.
Shay
Foulk: And so the, the next portion I think that ties into that is the slowing down to go faster. Right? So it is amazing. And we've seen this in my operation here recently. It's amazing the difference that it makes if you just meet as a team for, you know, 15 to 20 minutes in the morning and map out a game plan. Here's what we have going today. Because what it does from your stay focus point we just talked about, Chris, it allows you to prioritize what needs to be done and who needs to be doing it. And you and I talk about this a lot. When you're busiest and you don't think you have the time is probably when you need to be making the time to have those meetings. Right. Most important. And the reason for that is there's just so much stuff going on. You have a list of 37 things and you think you have to continuously work in the business.
If you take 20 minutes out of your day to work on the business, look at the big picture and map out what needs to be done, you're going to be so much better on your prioritization. And so much better on your task management when it comes to that delegation.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, and I could, I could hear the people rolling their eyes that are like, we got to get going, man, you know. And, and all it is is like a 5-minute huddle a lot of times in the morning can fix 3 hours of something being screwed up. I mean, last year, and I'll blame myself, this might not have been— might have been the year before last, I was, you know, running one of the planters and we had a specific order that stuff was going to go in, and, and I didn't talk to Jason, my partner, that morning. And the later on that day, I drove right by a field I was supposed to plant, and I was on the wrong order and ended up with the wrong hybrid in the wrong damn field because I wasn't paying attention earlier that day. I mean, just like you said, just 5 minutes at the beginning of the day to get everybody on the same page is huge.
And then I think it goes even further though, is You know, you get that rain day, then maybe it's not a 5-minute huddle. It might be, okay, how's things going so far? Here's where we're at. We're 40% done. We got this, this, and this to fix. We got this and this to go on. Get everybody on the same page for 20 minutes at that one. And, you know, these are the issues we got. Deal with them, get everybody on the same page, and then move forward. And I think a lot of times we, like you said, we just feel like we don't have time to do that, but making the time's worth it.
Shay
Foulk: And with that communication, Chris, I'm a big fan of over-communication. And what I mean by that is, you know, some people get really, really annoyed by the fact that, yes, we already talked about that, I know what I need to do, da da da da da. But during this important time of the year as we head into spring, we head into the planting season, I don't care, Chris, if you call me 5 times and say, hey, now we're going to this field next and this is the hybrid and that, you know, I would rather you do that. I'll keep my emotions in check, so I'm not going to get pissed off at you about reminding me. And there's a fine line between micromanaging and overcommunication, right? You know what that boundary is, and you need to be respectful of your team members.
But like you're saying, it's okay, and you should keep your emotions in check if you have someone calling just to double-check or verify. I would rather anybody in my operation, anybody in my team, call me 3 times to make sure that they have things right than have them do the wrong thing and get burned on the back end.
Chris
Barron: Yeah. The other thing Jason does in our operation every morning is he puts, he kind of maps the plan out. He'll kind of do bullet points of the plan, take a picture of it and text it to everybody. That's kind of a neat idea too. Everybody, you know, it's, I know there's more sophisticated, um, we have some very sophisticated clients too that actually have that on iPads and send all that stuff out.. But I mean, if you, if even if it's just jotting down this, this, this, and this, we're going to go here, here, and here. And we have two different crews, you know, we're running two different planters and kind of two different crews. And so each crew can see what the other crew's doing too. And sometimes that's really important. And, and I, I love what you said too, because I'm the king of saying, now what, what are we doing? Where are we going now?
You know, and then an hour later I'll forget and I'll call again. I'm like, okay, now what do we, where do I go next? Or what are we doing here? You know, so if you know that there's going to be some grace on the other end and you're not going to get, you know, your butt chewed because you can't remember anything or whatever, you know, it's, it's still, you know, and then when guys, people get tired and stuff and you get grumpy, stop being grumpy. If you're tired, I always tell everybody here, it's like, if you're tired, go home. If you're going to be an ass, just go home because it's not worth, it's not worth it. You know, plant, you know, spring and fall should be enjoyable. And if it's a pain in the ass, that's because everybody, you know, is overtired. Maybe you need to shut down for a day. I mean, it's not worth somebody getting hurt. Quality of life goes down.
Everybody, you know, chill out, be happy, you know. And if you're frustrated or pissed, that probably means you don't have enough sleep.
Shay
Foulk: I'm going to take 60 seconds here to talk just a little bit on the Extreme Ownership piece too. And if you're the one that's managing, uh, truck drivers and planters and deliveries and maintenance and everything, you know, if you're, if you're the one wearing that hat and you start getting frustrated at everybody else— Chris has called me 3 times and he doesn't, he doesn't, you know, pay attention to what we're talking about and he doesn't understand and truck drivers doing this and that, uh, you need to pause and take a second Go look at yourself in the mirror and say, what do I need to be doing better? You know, if you're the leader of your organization, if you're the one that makes things run, we talk about the transmission fluid, right? If you're the transmission fluid as a quality leader, how do you manage those decisions better? What can I be doing better?
Hey Chris, uh, I've noticed you've kind of been getting lost when we're mapping out the planting plan. Is there something I can do to make it easier for you to understand, or what would help you? And maybe there's not, and that's okay. But I think from an ownership standpoint, it forces you to take responsibility and say, is there something we can be doing better? Or do I just need to keep my emotion in check? Because getting mad, getting frustrated, it's not going to get you anywhere. So that's my extreme ownership spiel here for 60 seconds. But I think it's important from a leadership standpoint, Chris.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, for sure. I guess the last one, we've been kind of hitting on the communication, unless there's other stuff we kind of touch on here, but it's Part of that, what that goes into though, realistically, is clearly defined roles and responsibilities. And so often people go into spring or fall with not knowing exactly what everybody's supposed to do, you know, and it's just kind of mapping that out, whether it's daily or whether it's at the beginning of the season. You know, we just, a week or so ago, we did our spring planning discussion and we brought everybody in, including all the part-timers, and talked about what we're going to do. We put a planning plan together, which is never right because it rains in the wrong places and stuff gets screwed up. But, you know, you still put the plan together, right? And then you— then all you gotta do is tweak the plan.
And so, you know, those are just some things I think to think about, is just making sure that you've got roles, responsibilities mapped out for everybody, and nobody's wondering what the heck they're supposed to be doing. And then just clearly defining those expectations, like, okay, you know, if you're taking seed out to the planter And, you know, and it's going into the thing and there's 2 extra people standing there, don't just stand there with your hands in your pocket, go wash the frickin windows on the tractor, you know, or whatever it is, you know, do some of the stuff that— don't just, you know, stand around. And some of the times those are things that, you know, back to your Extreme Ownership, if we don't tell our part-timers, they don't think the way we do.
They don't— they aren't sitting there going, well, hey, if I go do this, it'll speed this up, or I'll do this, I'll do that. They don't think the same way. So we have to make sure we clearly define what our expectations are to get the results we want, and that limits frustration too, right? So I don't know if that's— that's really all I had on that, unless you had anything else on, on any of that stuff.
Shay
Foulk: Yep, that's good.
Chris
Barron: Yeah. So the only thing I was going to wrap up with is just the, um, you know, as we look at going into, to this season, as we record this, we're going into the 2022 crop. Season. And what we're seeing is the cost to put a corn crop in is pushing $1,000 an acre, and the cost to put a soybean crop in is pushing $700 an acre. Put a plan together, communicate well, execute the plan, and then review things as you go along. And be patient and get your rest. I mean, that's really my wrap-up, is, is paying attention to this stuff because You get one shot, man. You get one time to do this, and we're gonna head into it here soon.
Shay
Foulk: Yeah, my wrap-up, Chris, here is, you know, have fun too. I think sometimes we forget there's a difference between, you know, making a living and living, right? And take the time to enjoy it. It's an awesome time of year. We're headed into, yes, a period of high volatility, high input prices. There's a lot at stake. But we got high commodity prices. We have an optimistic outlook on what the season is, right? We're the farmers, we're the eternal optimists. So, you know, don't forget to have fun, enjoy it, enjoy the time of work and the people that you're working with. You know, we're not going to be doing this forever. You might have some people in your operation that, you know, who knows how many seasons they're going to be on the farm helping out. They might be moving on to something else or You know, so just, just take the time to enjoy that.
If you're working with family, remember that you're family too. You know, you're not— you're business partners, but also remember that you're family and be sure to enjoy the relationships and the time together. There's a reason that the culture that we have in the agricultural community is what it is, right? And so don't lose sight of that either. You know, just, just to wrap up here too, don't forget, um, to share the podcast. We really appreciate all of the listeners, all of the feedback that we've gotten. If there's something that you want to hear more of, or if there's anything that you want to share with us about, you know, what you've gotten from the podcast, we always love to hear from you. You can email me, uh, Shay, S-H-A-Y, at agviewsolutions.com, or you can email Chris, uh, Cbaron, at agviewsolutions.com. Really appreciate everything.
Happy to share this 400th episode with you and looking forward to the next 400, Chris.
Chris
Barron: That's awesome. I am too. And, uh, good luck going into this new year and, and, uh, be safe.
Shay
Foulk: Absolutely. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the Ag View Pitch, and we will catch you next time.