Financial planning for farmers: 2021

Shay

Foulk: 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.

Josh

Waite: Please feel free to reach out to us at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com.

Shay

Foulk: And now here is your host, Shay Foulk. Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today you have Shay Foulk with Josh Waite of Northwestern Mutual Group in, uh, Greater Peoria office here. How's it going, Josh?

Josh

Waite: Good, glad to be here.

Shay

Foulk: I appreciate taking the time for this. And kind of what today's conversation is going to look like is a background on financial planning for 2021. And in full disclosure, Josh does not work directly with farmers or agricultural producers very heavily necessarily, but what I've seen over time in talking with Josh and working with Josh is he has really adept personality of understanding what clients want and, and just picking up on, on things that people need to be considering in their personal lives and in their operations. And so I thought it'd be a helpful conversation for the listeners here on the Ag View Pitch and generally just looking at what are thoughts on the industry from the outside looking in with you not being heavily involved in agriculture on a day-to-day basis, and also just generally evaluating retirement considerations.

And as we face what appears to be a profitable 2021, which is a good thing, it's a whole different climate than what farm operations have been used to here for the last 6 to 7 years. And so with all of those challenges are opportunities, and hoping to have a good discussion on that here today. So if you would, Josh, if you could give the listeners just a little bit of background on yourself, who you are, what you do on a day-to-day basis, and we'll go from there.

Josh

Waite: Sounds great. So again, appreciate the opportunity, and the topic outlined is one that I've got a lot of interest and experience in, but also the topic of agriculture goes back to my roots, my upbringing. So I grew up a mile down the road from my family farm. My mom still lives in the farmhouse. My grandparents are deceased. My uncle still runs the farm, about 2,000 acres, corn, soybeans, and my wife and her family farms as well. So over in Mason County, a lot of irrigation over there, but agriculture has been a part of my life from the start. I never had a passion for it as far as going into farming. That was always my brother's interest and I took the path of business. But today I lead a team of 7. We kind of market ourselves under Waite Financial Group. And do financial planning, retirement planning for clients at all stages of life.

And some of those are in the agricultural industry. Many are self-employed like farmers.

Shay

Foulk: So I like what you said there, at all stages in life. And we're going to make sure that we hit on that here today because this farm financial planning is not just for people that are at retirement age or moving into retirement for the next few years. We'll expand on it a little bit more. The favorite, or some of the favorite people that Chris and I on the consulting side get to work with is those that are thinking 10, 15, 20, 40 years down the road. And, and I say that not facetiously, but truly, because there are operations that we sit down and work with and they say, hey, here's where we want to be in 2060. And for most people to even think about that is like, that's way out of the realm. But what can we do today to take specific actions towards farm financial planning in 2021 to help improve and achieve those goals when we get there.

So anything else that the listeners should kind of know about you or about the office where we sit here today? We're in downtown Peoria, Illinois. Anything else that we should know?

Josh

Waite: I would just say, because it's probably going to come up in our conversation a little bit later on, is in our career opportunity with Northwestern Mutual and Waite Financial Group, I'm running my own business. I've got a team of 7. I'm already today thinking about succession planning and who am I going to identify to take over my practice one day. Financial planning is something that doesn't end when I retire, no different than a farm operation. And I want our clients taken care of past the point that I'm still involved with the business. And so, I'm 40 years old and I've already started to think about that. And I don't think I'm premature in that. I could have been started doing that earlier. So I think there's some parallels between our business and a farming operation, even though we're in different industries, for sure.

Shay

Foulk: Absolutely. So with what you have going on here in the office, I want you to touch for a minute, just because I think it's unique and really interesting, on how this office operates. You've changed that here in the last 12 to 18 months. And can you talk a little bit about that? And why you chose to take that step with the business.

Josh

Waite: Yeah, so what, what Shay's referring to is I really have two roles. One is leading the Waite Financial Group, and that's the individual financial planning we do with clients. And then I also lead the Northwestern Mutual branch, and we've got a team of 30 in this building here in Peoria, many of them independent in their own businesses. But, um, but I'm kind of responsible for the culture. And about a year ago, we made a decision to to operate as a nonprofit organization, not in the corporate structure, but just philosophically. So with the, the office branch that I lead, all the profits that come out of that, we give away to local organizations and charities. And I feel really blessed that we're able to do that because the other side of the business is self-sustaining and supports us. But it really speaks to the culture we're trying to build.

And I think one of the things that I spend the most time thinking about is how do we build teamwork? How do we have camaraderie? How do we have a culture that people want to be a part of, that people are attracted to join? And I think people want to be a part of something that's bigger than themselves. And so that's the whole nonprofit organization kind of rooted in that idea.

Shay

Foulk: I hope everyone that's on a farm operation that's listening to this right now is taking down notes on the team health aspect and on creating that culture that you speak of. And, and we often refer to that, or I often refer to that, as how do you change the culture in agriculture. And it's so important because if you are hiring outside of people in the family, you have to create an environment that is good for people to come into. They have to know that they're being part of, of something that matters, that's having a greater impact. I wrote an article here recently Based off of, you know, the question from a book and an author that you and I both know of, of starting with why. What's your why in the operation? And if you can identify that and clearly communicate that to your team, to your employees, to those that you're hiring outside of family, it makes them want to stay.

It makes them want to be involved and commit to the purpose that you have. And understanding that, I think, is about half the battle.

Josh

Waite: Yeah, absolutely. And I would be the first one to admit we haven't always done it well. I think what we do today is effective. It's a culture that people want to be a part of, and I believe it's pretty special. But it's come from lessons learned in doing things the wrong way. And so, I mean, the reality is many of us, that's how we have to go about learning and getting better.

Shay

Foulk: I make mistakes all the time, and I think I learn from them most of the time. But yeah, sometimes you have to do things, you know, 2 or 5 times wrong. As a quick disclaimer here before we get too far in, you know, I want to make sure that the topics covered here today, it's not investment advice or insurance strategy or anything like that. This is just us talking about some of the services that Josh and the team at Northwestern Mutual provide. If you have any more specific questions, you can always reach out to this office, to the team here, or reach out to your local financial planning team. You know, we're just talking about general things here. To have a good conversation and hopefully do what we always hope to provide with Ag View Pitches is just value and perspective. So have to throw that disclaimer out here before we get too far down the road.

So let's look at the main reason that I wanted to have this conversation of profitability in 2021. And Josh, you and I have talked a little bit offline about this of, you know, farmers are set up in 2021 to have a profitable year and As we sit down with operations all over the country and in Canada, to see that black ink on the paper is a really good feeling. We haven't seen that in 6 or 7 years, at least not to the extent that we're projecting for 2021. And bar any catastrophes out there, whether it's a crop failure or whether, God forbid, another COVID-19 or something crazy like that happens, there's going to be money moving into the ag industry with some of the marketing opportunities that are taking place right now.

And so following 6 to 7 years of low profit, a lot of farm operations are going to be made whole, but they're going to have money there or available in this year and beyond that. And how do you manage that and make good decisions off of that? And the biggest question that we get from farmers who are either transitioning or looking to add people to their team or trying to decide how they bring in someone else either from the family or outside into the operation is what does retirement look like for us? And some of the key aspects of that is having a budget and understanding what your cost of living needs are going to be beyond the time where you decide to, you know, not necessarily hang up your coat, but maybe not show up as much or go to Florida, go spend a little time doing something else, some of the other things that you enjoy.

And a lot of times we see that farm operations don't have a great pulse on that. And it's by no fault necessarily of those involved other than they just haven't taken the time to think about it. You know, you and I were joking here a little bit earlier of a lot of farmers just, well, we're going to farm forever. That's what we're going to do. And I'm sure you see that in other industries too. You know, that it's what we do and it's what we love. So Can we talk a little bit here as we get rolling on how to plan for that budgeting, how to think about financial planning in terms of what happens after I retire, what does my cost of living need to look like, and how do I even begin to make some of those decisions?

Josh

Waite: Yeah, I think it's a really good and important question. And I think I'd start with, like you were saying, start with why. I mean, why is that important? I believe it's important because when you have a plan, it provides clarity on what the future might look like. No, you don't have a crystal ball, and you're going to have to adapt the plan as you go. But, but you've got to start somewhere, and that clarity breeds confidence. And so the more clear the picture is in the future, the more confident you are in the decisions you're going to make today.

If you're trying to evaluate hiring somebody today and you don't know what your plan is for retirement, for example, outside of just you're going to work forever, I think that's a tough question to answer because you've got to evaluate how much do I invest in this new employee or this new area of the business and what's the opportunity cost that could have been there to invest in my future. So, when we work with clients and we start from individuals right out of college, like that's not too early to start planning to individuals that are in their 50s that haven't had a conversation with a financial advisor yet and are just starting. But the idea is to start to get some clarity on where you want to be in the future.

A financial planning kind of rule of thumb would be if you can retire on 80% of the income that you had been living on previously, that's a good best practice or a starting point. When we're working with younger individuals, that's all we use. Because in your 30s and often 40s, retirement is still too far away to really clearly know what that picture looks like. But as we work with individuals in their 50s, I mean, they've got a pretty good idea of what it takes to pay their bills, what they want to be doing when they retire, and therefore, we can build a budget for retirement based on kind of those figures that they have for today.

Shay

Foulk: So, I want to pause you there quick. There's probably people that push back a little bit and they say, Josh, I don't even know what I'm doing tomorrow. If you're working with someone that doesn't have that vision or can't kind of wrap their mind around that, is a financial planner the person that fills that gap and says, "Okay, you don't have that vision, but here's some things to consider. Here's some areas that we see others take advantage of. You know, what do you think about this?" Am I right in thinking that's where the financial planner fits in?

Josh

Waite: Absolutely. And I think a good financial planner is one that's going to ask good questions. So, the financial planner is not going to come in and say, "Shay, this is exactly what you should do based on what other people are doing." I would say if you've got a financial advisor or planner that's taking that approach, you might want to consider talking to someone else because a good financial planner is going to sit down with you and ask you thought-provoking questions that's going to help you draw those conclusions even if you've never given it any thought before. And I can tell you, many conversations I've had with individuals are just like that. They've not even begun to think about retirement because life's going so fast, whether it's their family or their business, and they just don't have time to get to it.

Shay

Foulk: And with some of the people we've worked with, particularly over the last couple of months, I'm thinking in my mind, two different operations said the same thing. You hire what you don't do well. You know, you work with someone else in the areas that you know you don't do well. So if you're listening to this podcast right now and you know that financial planning is not your strong suit, never has been, never will be, and you haven't taken time to reach out to someone, you know, it's probably an indication that you should begin thinking about it. And you can recognize that pretty early on. I mean, I know I tell my wife I'm good at about 3 things, and beyond that, I'm more than happy to find the right person for the job to do those things or to help me with them along the way.

Josh

Waite: It's interesting you say that because I just finished a meeting with a client. It's a young couple. They're in their early 30s, physician, young family. But the example I was using with them is an example from my 4th grade daughter's teacher. And we went in for a parent-teacher conference a couple years ago, and she was talking about how she's helping the kids learn to read. And her message to the kids is, "Good readers know when they don't know." Good readers know when they don't know, which means, our daughter's name's Ava, when Ava doesn't know a word, a good reader recognizes that, raises their hand and asks for clarification so they can understand what that word is and how it fits into the story as they're learning how to read.

And I was using that example with my client this afternoon because, and this individual's really, really smart, I mean, they're a physician, high IQ, but really specialized in their knowledge. They're not an expert in everything. And I was complimenting her that, I mean, she's recognizing she knows what she doesn't know. She's raising her hand and saying, yes, I'd like help with financial planning. And I would guess most farmers, that's not their expertise. Probably shouldn't be their expertise. They should outsource that just like other things that they outsource.

Shay

Foulk: It's sometimes easier to be a business manager and manage some of the people and take time to work on the meetings. And that's why a lot of the clients that we work with in the business consulting side on the agribusiness or family farm or whatever it is, they hire us because they say, "We need to focus on the things that we do well. Please help us figure out some of these other areas." Absolutely. And I think that's where the financial planner fits in. The other thing that I want to hit on out of your initial comments there is Sometimes we work with operations that take very, very little draw out of the business. I mean, they're constantly reinvesting into infrastructure or land assets or making sure that they have enough money in those bad years to cash flow. And some of those operations are offer— operating off of a pure cash basis.

Some of them have a pretty extended line of credit. And everywhere in between. So if you have someone that historically has taken a really low draw, they might be quote-unquote, you know, land rich, cash poor, which I'm not a big fan of that term. But what are your thoughts on someone in that situation? How did they manage those assets and get started down the financial planning road?

Josh

Waite: Yeah, it's a good question. You know, I'm not an expert in that area, particularly for for a farmer or someone in agriculture. But when we— when I think about that, you know, whether you're taking a draw or not, I think it's smart to have metrics in terms of what level of profitability you hope to achieve. And so in my business, I know that our profit percentage should be a certain level. I may be strategically choosing to take that profit and reinvest to grow. But I've got an awareness for it versus just not knowing. And so whether it's in my business, you've got X percent for operations, you've got X percent for professional staff, there's not a whole lot of overhead in terms of hard assets and those sort of things. But then we've got a percentage that we're targeting for profitability.

Whether I take all of that in a draw or not is an intentional decision versus just just taking as little as possible and reinvesting it back in. In my business, I mean, that profitability is what drives what the business is worth, right? So if I don't know what my profits are, then how do I know what the business is worth?

Shay

Foulk: Well, and you can't improve what you don't measure either. Yeah, exactly. You know, so, and people that are listening to this are probably smiling a little bit because so like we run a system called Profit Manager and it doesn't matter what system you run, what cost of production analysis tool you use. But understanding what your costs are and how it breaks down. So the two things that you hit on are what's your return to management or your draw, you know, to include your income and living expenses and everything else. What's that return to management? And also, what's your target margin? You know, that's a different way of saying what you're talking about there, but do you have a 10% target margin on your commodity pricing? Maybe it's 8, maybe it's 25, depending on what you do.

But if you're not measuring that, you don't know how you can improve it and you don't know how you can track it. And what some of the really cool things that you can do as a business manager, uh, and, and financial planning is part of this too, if you're setting that target margin, some of the cool things that you can do is set a trendline analysis. You know, you start gathering this data for 2, 3, 5 years. It's really, really powerful in the decision-making process that you have moving forward. And I'm sure it's the same way when you start looking at financial metrics on how your portfolio is performing, or are you achieving the goals that you set, it's probably a pretty powerful thing, right?

Josh

Waite: Absolutely.

Shay

Foulk: All right, so, you know, I think we kind of addressed some of the initial questions there. I'd like to get your perception of agriculture as an industry compared to some of the other areas that you work in. Of course, you told us a little bit about your history and your connections to agriculture, You chose not to go down that path and some people are probably thinking, man, this guy's pretty smart. You know, he chose not to go into agriculture. But, you know, and just a list of things that we'll talk on here, but agriculture is a pretty high overhead business. Generally a lower rate of return, not always. It depends on if you're in a specialty crop area or if you have a niche market. But generally lower returns than what some other industries are performing at. It's very labor intensive.

We are subject to global market volatility, at least for, you know, probably 70% of the people listening are pretty subject to global market volatility. And we're selling a commodity, you know, at the end of the day, we're selling a commodity. We're trying to operate off of pretty tight margins. Sometimes it's a service-based thing with agribusinesses that we work with or farm operations that have other services. When you think about some of these points that I listed here in agriculture, what's kind of your outside perspective? And maybe how is that similar? You know, why is it not all that different from some of the other businesses?

Josh

Waite: Yeah, I know there's definitely parallels. You know, in terms of just kind of volatility in the income, you mentioned 7 years of low commodity prices generate low profitability and so forth. And then And then you have years where they're really great. And hopefully this year is one of those years. You know, that's not that different than even an executive that we work with at Caterpillar. We're putting together a financial plan for them because in those high-level executives, a lot of their compensation is tied to the stock performance. And their stock options can be worth a lot and it can be worth very little. Their bonus could be a lot or it could be very little.

And if we kind of connect it to what we were just talking about, that's where my belief is having a plan, having a plan that you're operating off of gives you a baseline then to adapt with whatever gets thrown at you, whether it's a good year and you've got extra cash flow to do something strategic with it, or you've got lean years. Just if you don't have a plan, I think it presents, it makes the situation that could be tough a whole lot worse.

Shay

Foulk: I always love the saying, "Everybody has a plan until you get punched in the mouth," you know, and, and what we saw from the military side too with training there is the times that your plan goes exactly as you expected is zero. It never goes as you expected. You get on the ground, things look different than they did on the aerial imagery that you received. You know, you have in your head that you're going to be able to run and move and communicate and do everything else, and then you got radios down and it's 115 degrees and It's darker than you thought it would be, you know, and there's a lot of similarities there though. If you get punched in the mouth, having that plan to start with is the ultimate baseline because when everything else goes out the window, what we do, not only from as humans but as business managers, is we revert back to the simplest truths that we know.

We revert back to the simplest principles that are ingrained in us. And if we have a basic plan in place, everything else can change, but we have a general idea, a general direction. We've mapped some of those things out and can look down the road at that.

Josh

Waite: Yeah. And I think about some of the things I know you're passionate about around— we mentioned culture, but just kind of vision and mission and principles that you operate on. At the end of the day, I mean, if you're leading an organization, I mean, that's That's your kind of simple baseline. In our organization, we've got 5 principles that we operate by. And, you know, day-to-day things vary dramatically. But we've got those core principles that are key that drive us and kind of our guidance system. And so that's a more simpler, more simplified version of this idea of having a plan. It's not so much a plan, but having principles that, you know, you're going to live by, and you can adapt as long as you've got a baseline.

Shay

Foulk: Looking at those principles too, something else that popped into mind there is I'm a firm believer that if you are the leader of the organization, if you're the leader of your farm operation or of your business, not only do you have the accountability to handle some of these things, you have the responsibility to do it. And sometimes for, for people out there that are farmers that are sole proprietors, or they're working with their brothers or dads, you don't have someone that you have to be as accountable to as a lot of other industries out there. You know, you don't— you're your own boss, in essence. You are your employee, the CEO, the shareholder, all at once, you know. But you have a responsibility to yourself, you have a responsibility to your family to take these things into consideration.

And while that's not always the most fun conversation to have, it might keep you up at night thinking about it. It's important. And I believe in tackling the things that are hardest in life head-on because they don't go away. Yeah. They're always staring at you.

Josh

Waite: Well, you know, because you see some of the communication I send out that we've got a theme in our office that revolves around our informal mascot of the buffalo. Yes. And in the buffalo story, just to keep it short, Talks about how in the plains of Kansas, you've got two animals in the same setting, both buffalo and cattle. And as the storms come from the west over the Rocky Mountains, when the storms come upon the cattle, if you observe them in nature, cattle turn and run away. Why? I couldn't tell you, but they run away. And if you think about this visually, they just prolong the amount of time that they're in harsh weather. And that's not how we want to operate. That's running away from your fears. You're running away from the challenges versus diving in. Whereas buffalo, on the other hand, do the opposite. If you observe them, they turn head-on into the storm.

You can pull up YouTube videos of this if you're really curious in seeing it in action. But the buffalo chase into the storm. They charge into the storm. And that's the mantra that we we live by in our organization is just, you know, we're all going to have challenges. We're going to have things that we're afraid of. Often procrastinating just prolongs and makes it even worse versus just charging in, getting it done. Whether in my business that's picking up the phone and calling a potential client or whether it's in the agricultural business, you've got the same fears and things. And often kicking the can down the road is not going to benefit the situation.

Shay

Foulk: A good friend of mine from northeast Iowa, he made shirts that says, "Be a buffalo." And it's a pretty simple message. It's a pretty simple mantra, you know, but be a buffalo when it comes to these important and difficult things that you need to do. And it's not only for financial planning. I mean, we'll talk about it here in a little bit, but estate planning is another thing that can make people feel uncomfortable. You know, you're not going to die. You're going to live forever. You're going to keep farming.

Josh

Waite: Yeah, well, most of those topics related to financial planning are delayed gratification. Right? Whether it's saving for the future, purchasing insurance, starting to do estate planning, there's not a lot of immediate gratification in that. But if you prolong and procrastinate and put it off, all of a sudden what could have been a simple fix becomes a really big problem that you've got to figure out.

Shay

Foulk: Sometimes people like to characterize that based off of generations, you know, millennials or Gen Zs or Gen X or wherever we're at today. Are instant gratification. They really like that aspect of it. But I'm not so sure that that's not true with everybody. I mean, as humans, we kind of have an innate—

Josh

Waite: I think it's human nature.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. So we have to be careful or not careful, but I just want to make the point of that is it's not just based on the generation that you are. A lot of it has to do with how you were raised, what you've grown up, what you've been through, where you're at today financially. And who you are as a person. So, that moving away from that instant gratification to delayed gratification, it's hard. It's not easy.

Josh

Waite: Well, I believe the most successful people in life, regardless of your industry, have developed a habit of doing that. It is facing their fears or being willing to delay gratification for the future. But I think that's key to financial planning. We talk about it all the time, but regardless of your industry, I believe it matters.

Shay

Foulk: So let's talk, you know, on some more specific portions of financial planning. We've talked about each of these areas a little bit, you know, agriculture in general, budgeting, how it compares to other industries, age. You know, I'm sure you have a pretty similar feeling, as I mentioned earlier, on that is the sooner you can start working with someone and planning for their future, the better off they are as a client that you are in being helpful to them as a business relationship partner. If there's someone that's young out there as a young farmer listening to this, what would you kind of encourage those who are investing early in their future to consider or to be thinking about? Or if they haven't gone down that path, where do they start?

Josh

Waite: Yeah, so I think Let's start with the last question is, where do you start? I would seek out somebody that you know is trusted and reliable. And often, that's going to come from a referral. So, very rarely, I think, are you going to find your best fit from a financial planning perspective by just looking up on the internet financial advisors and trying to find somebody. If you end up doing that, you know, financial planning is an industry that many get into but not very many stay in. And it's one of the frustrating aspects of what I do in recruiting and developing talent is the reality is 10% of the individuals that come into financial services are going to still be in financial services 5 years from today. Wow. So, you want to be thoughtful on who you're aligning with. Otherwise, you're going to be realigning every couple of years with a new person.

And I'm betting there's some listeners on this podcast that have already experienced that. So, how do you do that? Well, certainly a referral is stronger than just calling somebody off the internet. Looking for financial advisors who have designations, whether it's a Certified Financial Planner or something like that, that speaks to their willingness to invest in their knowledge and their expertise. And it says to me that person's serious about this career in this industry. Not just checking it out to see if they can be successful and build a practice and a clientele and so forth. But the earlier you start, the better. So, you align with somebody. A good financial advisor is going to be a coach, a consultant. It's going to be, I mean, hopefully, I mean, my desire is it becomes a friendship.

You've got a relationship with somebody that they know you care about their best interest in And the client trusts you as the advisor to help you get to where you want to go. And that dialogue starts again with a lot of Q&A and getting to know somebody. But as you think about kind of good best practices, I mean, rules of thumb as far as saving, you know, the old-school method would be 10% of income today. That usually doesn't work for most individuals. But what I'm guessing for most farmers And I think about this with some of my clients that are in the real estate industry, is they have a tendency to put all of their wealth and all of their income and investing back into real estate. And my guess is there's farmers out there that every extra dollar they make, they're going to buy more farmland.

And what I tell my clients that are in real estate is there's no doubt about it, real estate is their number one wealth-creating engine. But, you know, you accumulate wealth through concentration, you maintain wealth through diversification. And the sooner someone can start systematically diversifying into other tools, whether that's the stock market and they set up a retirement plan, a SEP or a SIMPLE, or just a basic IRA, or whether that's through insurance strategies. You know, there's merit for all kinds of different products. But the idea is to start to diversify early so that you don't wake up like some clients that I have that have all their money in one particular strategy. And at that point in time, you mentioned 7 years of less than ideal returns, you don't want to really need an asset and have it underperforming and it be the only asset you have.

Shay

Foulk: I really like what you mentioned there, particularly when I think about farm operations that have spent their life dumping their wealth back into land. And I'm going to use that as a specific example. Equipment to some extent, um, and I'll say this right now, equipment is not a retirement plan. At some point in agriculture, it was okay as a significant amount of money. It held its asset value. We're in a completely different environment today. You know, equipment is not a retirement plan, and it should not be considered as part of that because when you get into phasing out and transitioning and you have to have a purchase or you're taking a one-time buyout of that equipment, you're going to get clobbered on taxes. And it's no different for any other rolling asset or mid-level asset, right?

Josh

Waite: Yeah, no, I've got a family member that's dealing with that right now. He's in the agricultural industry. He's looking to retire. He's got $1 million worth of equipment, but the person that's going to take over the farm can't afford— can't even get the loan for the $1 million. And so he's got to do it over an installment sale. But then there's the tax implications. But the reality is, you know, all of the assets, it's a concentrated asset. Like, how do you unwind that? And it would have been much better in this case. This individual has diversified in other places, but if that's all he had, he would be thinking, geez, it would have been a whole lot better to instead of buying an extra $25,000 of equipment every year, taking $25,000, putting it into something else just to start to have that diversification strategy.

Shay

Foulk: It's a really hard tightrope to walk too. And I'll make sure that we're adding that too, because equipment fleet management is a huge challenge for farmers. And we work specifically on that. And I'm a pretty big believer that over the next 10, 15, 20 years, those that have a really good pulse on their equipment fleet management are going to be the ones that continue to farm and continue to handle this global market and commodities and the volatility that we see. You have to have those things dialed in, no different than we were talking on target margins before. The other area too is with land, right? So taking that wealth and pumping it back into the land. And then when you get to the end of your career, whether you have someone to transfer that to or not, land rent prices have continued to increase.

They've been steady here over the last couple years, but anytime you have good commodity prices, We see commodity prices go like this and then land rent prices follow it. And when commodity prices go back down, it's weird because those land rent prices seem to stay up pretty high.

Josh

Waite: I was going to say, I don't think they drop.

Shay

Foulk: They don't ever come back down too easily. And it's fine from a retirement strategy on if you have someone that's willing to rent that property and willing to pay those dollars for it. But you need to understand how that plays into the whole picture. You know, what are you drawing from Social Security? What are you drawing from the What are the financial plans that you have in place? How does that rent factor into it? Do you have diversification or other forms of income that are working for you? And taking time to paint that picture and understand what that means for your farm operation. It takes time. You might not have the expertise in it, but I think finding the right person to work with on that and help you understand all of that is really important.

Josh

Waite: Well, and certainly the, The factor that we talk about with clients all the time is the tax implications. And, you know, are we paying ordinary income or do we have capital gains? What are tax rates going to look like in the future? I mean, that's maybe the biggest wild card. I mean, today taxes are at historical lows. We've got clients that pay the 37% highest federal marginal rate and hate doing it. But I remind them that, you know, when I was born in 1980, the highest federal tax rate was 70%. And so 37% looks pretty good compared to 70%. And when you think about everything that's happened just in the last year with stimulus into our economy to keep it afloat amidst COVID, I mean, I don't think taxes have anywhere to go but up from here. And so thinking about where you're putting your money and what the future tax implications of that would be.

I mean, those are the sort of things that a financial advisor, financial planner is going to get you thinking about now because you want to pay the least amount of tax over your lifetime. And I think too often individuals are focused on paying the least amount of tax this year.

Shay

Foulk: Right now.

Josh

Waite: Yeah. And you can get your tax really low. I mean, buy a bunch of equipment, depreciate it. But I'm not sure that's going to be the strategy to pay the least amount of tax over your lifetime.

Shay

Foulk: And my grandpa always said, you know, paying taxes, you don't like doing it, but it's a good thing, right? I mean, you're making money, right? You have income taxes that you're paying, you're making money off of that. And the other thing too that I want to make sure I hit on with the land portion. So of course, having that asset on the balance sheet, particularly when you map out your legacy and what does it look like for the future of the family, right? Particularly if you have someone coming back into the operation. That's good. But if you don't, you know, maybe the junior partner isn't interested in coming back to the operation. Now you're sitting on this land, whether it's 200, 600, 2,000 acres of own land.

I'll tell you, when you need cash in retirement, it is an incredibly emotional attachment to try to justify selling that 80 acres or 160 acres or 200, whatever it is, to make ends meet because you've spent your whole life investing in that. It's not a chunk of dirt, it's a part of you.

Josh

Waite: No, it's emotional.

Shay

Foulk: And how do you step away from that? So that's the other hesitancy I have when asking operations, you know, where are your divestments? What does your portfolio look like? How are you planning for the future? And they say, well, we've pretty much put it all back into land. That's okay. You know, if you have other plans in place too, but are you okay with selling off $2 million worth of land assets that you worked 30 years to pay for? Because you want to spend more time in Florida or spend more time with the grandkids in North Carolina, whatever it is, you have to ask yourself the question if you're okay with that and have those hard conversations.

Josh

Waite: Well, I'm guessing it's, it's even harder when that land has been in the family. Oh yeah, right. I mean, if that's not just land you accumulated, but it's land you accumulated plus land that you inherited that's been in the family for generations. I mean, that's what I observe in my family in the farming operation, and those are real challenges.

Shay

Foulk: There's an incredible amount of pressure on operations that are fourth, fifth, seventh generation farmers of not wanting to be the one that loses the farm operation. And in the big scheme of things, you think of that, you know, 7th generation isn't really that long because we're a fairly young country. But at the same time, there's so much history, there's so much sweat equity and blood, sweat, and tears that went into that. Um, it makes it even more emotional. Yeah, you're absolutely right on that. Um, that leads me to another point of looking at that long term, you know, spending time in Florida. We kind of joked around on that a little bit, but from a life expectancy standpoint, how are you taking that into consideration with the clients that you're working with today as being a very real factor?

You know, you and I were talking offline here, we might not see it necessarily, but certainly, you know, our kids might see it of living to 85, 95, 105, or beyond as we see improvements in, in health and technology and science and what we understand about the world. How do you Is that as big of a factor as I may be thinking it is?

Josh

Waite: Oh, it's— I mean, longevity is the discussion today in retirement planning. In our industry, and that's what everybody's talking about, is how do you address longevity risk? Because the reality is people are living longer. When I put together— our team puts together financial plans, we think of it as stress testing the plan. But we run our financial plans to age 120. 100. Not because today people on average live to 100, but we want to stress test the plan to know what is it going to look like if you did. And I may misspeak here on the statistic, but I'm pretty sure the stat today, if you went to an insurance company and talked to their actuaries, right, so the folks that know how long people live, they would say the average 60-year-old couple has a joint life expectancy of 30 years.

So, to break that down, so the average 60-year-old couple has a joint life expectancy, which means one of them is going to live 30 years. One of them is going to be to 90. And that's the average. And I keep saying average because that means there are people that are on the other side of that average and there's individuals on the lower end. But, you know, often the clientele that we're working with If I asked them, "Do you think you're average?" Their answer is, "No, I'm better than average." Better than average, whether it's in terms of how they take care of themselves or just the decisions that they make. A lot of life expectancy is tied to education level and those sorts of things.

But if you just look at that average statistic, I don't think most people are thinking they're going to live till 90 because they're basing life expectancy on the generation before them or two generations or their grandparents.

Shay

Foulk: Grandpa only lived to 75 or 78. Well, I better hang it up at 67 so I have 10 or 12 good years of retirement, right?

Josh

Waite: Yeah. So, that's a major flaw in one's thinking. And what it leads to in terms of the work we do is often individuals, when they retire, get too conservative too quickly with their investments. They're 60 years old and they're thinking, "Okay, this is all I've got to live on. And so I need to get really conservative." And they're not thinking about the reality that on average, one of them is going to be there 30 years. If you get really conservative too quickly, you're going to run out of money in your 80s because your investments need to outpace inflation and keep up with the cost of living.

Shay

Foulk: So you're saying they're conservative on their investments, not necessarily, uh, you know, their quality of life or living, right?

Josh

Waite: Their investments. So what they're using to generate income.

Shay

Foulk: Now you're using 60 as an example. Um, is it a consideration now with, with this as part of the conversation of this life expectancy of, well, maybe we shouldn't be retiring at, at 65 or 67, maybe You know, do we plan on working until we're 75? And how does some of that tie into the family dynamics? I mean, I know there's farm operations out there, and with my farm operation in particular, working with my father-in-law, you ask the question, well, how much do you want to be doing when you're 75? What level of involvement do you want to have financially, with labor, with daily management decisions? And as a young person, It's also a pretty big consideration if you're in a business like that. Do I want to be 35, 40, 45 years old and still not making these key managerial decisions? What does that look like?

So I guess, how do you address that with your clients of looking at retirement age where it is today?

Josh

Waite: Yeah. So, the question I ask in one of our early discussions would be, what is the age that you want to be in a position where if you're still working, it's simply because it's what you love and what you want to be doing, not because you need to. I mean, the idea of retiring and sitting on the beach and not doing anything, I don't think appeals to a lot of people. It doesn't appeal to me. I'm always going to be doing something. I may be in this business in some form or fashion transitioning out. I hope my kids one day want to come into this business. But when I think about what is the age where I I want to be positioned so that if I'm still working, it's just because I love what I do, not because I need the money. That's a different answer than when do I want to retire. And so, if somebody wants to still be working because they love what they're doing at 70 or 75, great.

But they're doing it because they love doing it. They've put a plan in place and probably well before that they were positioned that if they didn't love it anymore, they could get out. And I would think just with the physical demands of agriculture, I mean, to be doing that at 70 or 75 has got to be highly unlikely or painful. Right.

Shay

Foulk: Or, you know, and there are a lot of people that are still doing things like running combines and doing the equipment stuff, but you don't necessarily want to be out there moving steers or cleaning out a hog building or doing stuff like that at that age. And I think that's a key Even just throwing seed into the planter. I mean, right, you know, it does take a pretty big wear and tear. And the other thing is the emotional anxiety or the amount of stress of being financially involved in a business too, because there are people that are on the other side of that, of, you know, I want to get to a point where all I have to do is show up and drive a tractor and tell tractors drive themselves, drive a tractor and enjoy it, you know, really enjoy the farming.

I don't want to have to worry about a loan renewal or making sure that we have the capital that we need for this expenditure that we're anticipating or figuring out what the growth trajectory is for the business. I don't want to have that responsibility. I want to go to sleep at 9 o'clock at night and wake up at 4 in the morning and go get coffee at the coffee shop and do that sort of stuff and enjoy life a little bit more. So I think it's really interesting looking at those differentiators there. With the clients that you work with, where does that age fall? You know, I mean, I'm sure it's a spread, but where does that age fall of where they would like to not have to rely on income?

Josh

Waite: Yeah, I'd say the answer ranges most frequently between 55 and 65. Okay. And often working with individuals that are again, executives in corporate America. And their reality is whether they wanted to work to 65 or not, they likely won't get the choice. They'll get right-sized, downsized, reorganization. And so, they need to have a plan so that when those things happen, they can adjust and adapt. And most of our clients that have been removed from positions, even though they were great performers, I mean, they did just fine because they had a plan in place.

And that's what I was going to say coming back to kind of this discussion is regardless of what that age ends up being, the earlier someone can start thinking about these things, and even if it's something very basic, having a plan so that they're working towards something versus in our clients' lives, it's their position's eliminated. In the agricultural community, if you're 55, 60, and something happens to your health, right? And now, no matter how badly you want to be doing it, just you're not able to. If at that point you're just now starting to think about what's my plan, it's too late in my opinion.

Shay

Foulk: What happens in that scenario? What if it is too late and you have to figure out how do you start from that?

Josh

Waite: Oh, too late in terms of something bad?

Shay

Foulk: Something catastrophic happens. You lose 60% of your rented ground and all of a sudden that's not enough for an income. I mean, are you still focused on investment strategy at that standpoint, or is it more so, you know, how do we get our family by today?

Josh

Waite: Yeah, I think you're just trying to get by at that point.

Shay

Foulk: It's a tough position to be in.

Josh

Waite: Yeah, you're living life reacting versus being proactive and living it by your design.

Shay

Foulk: What else is there? What am I not asking you on investments, or what other, I guess, kind of final comments do you have on the investment side. For those who are in agriculture, farmers who are listening to the podcast, agribusiness owners, what else should they be considering that maybe we haven't hit on?

Josh

Waite: Well, I just think it's human nature to be afraid of something that you don't understand. And my guess is many farmers, just like again my clients that are in real estate, and it really doesn't matter the industry they're in, often the stock market is something that they don't really understand. And therefore, just because they don't understand it It's intimidating. They're fearful of putting money into it. They see the headlines in the news which are sensationalizing kind of the worst-case scenario of things. And so that's where, again, having a relationship with a financial advisor, a financial planner that's going to educate you, not just sell you something, but educate you on how those products work, what the stock market really is. I believe once someone understands the stock market, It's really not risky at all.

If you think about the stock market compared to what you're describing in the agricultural field, I mean, 3 out of 4 years the market goes up. It's a 75% chance you win. Yeah, I joke with my clients, there's a casino on the other side of the river. I'm not a gambler.

Shay

Foulk: It's the Paradise. If you're interested, you can come check it out.

Josh

Waite: Yeah, I don't go there. But if I did and I walked up to the slot machine and I knew there was a 75% chance I was going to win. I'm not worried about the years that I've— or the times where I put money in, pull the lever, push the button, whatever it is, and no money comes out. I'm just feeding the slot machine as much as I can. And that's an oversimplification, but the reality is that's what investing in the stock market is. Now, people let their emotions get the best of them in that 1 year out of 4 that it drops. And if you bail out and panic like March of 2020 in the midst of COVID well, then you're going to fail as an investor. But a good financial advisor is going to help you through that.

Shay

Foulk: I think we'll leave it at that on the investments. That's a really good note to end on. So let's talk— I mean, you're not just in investments here with Northwestern Mutual, with your office, with the team that you work with, your insurance and investments, right? So from an insurance standpoint with farm operations, there's some some pretty interesting considerations, one of them being key employee insurance. And I'd like to focus on that just real quick. How does key employee insurance affect businesses outside of agriculture, whether in transition planning or just in the event that, you know, worst-case scenario happens, you get run over by a beer truck? How does someone step into that role? Can you talk a little bit about your thoughts on key employee Insurance.

Josh

Waite: So key employee insurance specifically is referring to life insurance in most cases. So life insurance on a key employee, and I'll take our business as your case study. I own life insurance on every employee that works for me. The amount varies based on what that individual does, what their salary is, and how much of a loss it would be if they were to pass away unexpectedly. But If we're talking about life insurance, and there's different types as you've got on the screen here that we'll talk about in a second, but I mean, term life insurance is incredibly cheap. Really, it's not even a decision-making factor in terms of the cost. And so, for me to have coverage on those that work for me so that if something happens, I've got the resources to weather the storm if it takes me a while to replace that talent.

If I need those resources to attract the right person into the role, I'm protected and our business is protected. And really, that doesn't just protect me, that protects everybody else that works for our company. Because if one key person goes down, everybody's going to be affected. And if they share in the profits of the business, the profits are going to go down. We've got to have a way to compensate for that. So, I'm a big proponent with business owners of any industry to have key person insurance.

Shay

Foulk: And that life insurance goes both ways too. And the coverage looks a little bit different. I'm, I'm not an expert. I'm not going to get into the intricacies on that. But it's no different than like looking at a transition plan for a farm operation, right? Like, for instance, my father-in-law might be looking at me as part of the transition plan down the road and have a key person policy or a life insurance policy on me. Because I might be built into his retirement strategy.

Josh

Waite: You're his succession plan. I mean, if you're not there to buy him out, he no longer has a retirement plan, right?

Shay

Foulk: And vice versa though. I mean, if the operation— if you don't know how the will or some of the estate planning or some of that stuff is set up, if I'm sinking my time and sweat equity and knowledge and career and personal development into that operation and all of a sudden all of a sudden something happens to the senior in a transitioning partner relationship. Um, it goes both ways too if something were to happen to them.

Josh

Waite: Well, and what you're referring to there could be categorized as key person insurance or key employee. It also could be categorized as buy-sell insurance. So you and I are business partners, we've got a business worth $1 million, 50/50. I own insurance on you for $500,000, you own insurance for me for $500,000. If I pass away, you're going to get the $500,000 on that policy that you bought on me, and you're going to take that and likely buy out my wife so she is made whole on the value of the business that we owned. And from your perspective, you likely don't want to be going into business with my wife, and she likely doesn't want to be in the business in the first place.

Shay

Foulk: She's very nice, but no, I probably don't want to go into business with her. And I will— I want to reiterate that. Buy-sell agreements. Buy-sell agreements. Have them written appropriately so that all parties understand it, so that it's very clear, so that expectations are met. And, and if you don't have a buy-sell agreement in place, I want you to pause this podcast right now and I want you to just start writing down on a piece of paper what you think that should look like and talk with your business partner about it. Talk with your spouse about it. Have that hard conversation. It's so incredibly important.

Josh

Waite: Talk to your financial planner. I mean, those are conversations that we have with clients, helping them think through that, because, I mean, there's the practical, who do we want the business to go to? And then there's a lot of tax implications that come into, okay, how do we do that efficiently so that the actual percentages work out the way we hope?

Shay

Foulk: Right. Because just because I have $500,000 on you, you know, something happens to you, doesn't mean that $500,000 is going to do what we want it to, because you have legal fees, you have taxes, you have a lot of process of making sure that it gets done appropriately. And this is a key point that I didn't hit on earlier. You know, some people say, well, Shay, I don't want to be insurance poor. Well, you'd have to buy a lot of insurance in some of these cases to be insurance poor. It's just you have to get beyond the point No different than in crop insurance. You know, Chris and I joke that we're not crop insurance agents, but we could play one on TV if we wanted to. I could probably play a, you know, financial advisor role on TV if I wanted to, just because of how much we believe in it and how much the importance is there.

It's emotional because of what you're writing a check for right now, right? It's not that instant gratification, right? And you don't want to scenario yourself to death of, well, yeah, I mean, I could be driving home and get hit by a beer truck or, you know, something outside of that. I did a podcast here recently looking at the 4 Ds of death, divorce, disability, and disaster. It's not just if you get hit by a beer truck, it's what if you're incapacitated because you hit a deer on the way home and you can't make decisions? Or what if you're out of work for 8 months because, you know, something severe happens? It's making sure that you're planning for that appropriately. And even though you're having to write a check for that and take time out of your, you your day. It's just good business management practices. Again, having the responsibility to address these things.

Josh

Waite: Absolutely.

Shay

Foulk: So, let's talk, you know, term and whole life insurance. It can be a little bit confusing for people. Can you give the 30,000-foot view of the difference in those policies?

Josh

Waite: Absolutely. And, you know, there's so much information out there on the internet. And if you look hard enough, you could find individuals that have strong opinions on both sides. Opinions so strongly that the whole life advocate would say, "If you buy term insurance, you're crazy," and the term insurance advocate would say, "If you talk to anybody that's trying to sell you whole life insurance, run." Right.

Shay

Foulk: I mean, that's quite the division.

Josh

Waite: So, there's just strong opinions. Our philosophy is that both products make sense in certain situations. So, the 30,000-foot view, if we think term insurance, term insurance, as the name implies, is in force for a term of You buy it for 10 years, 20 years. Some companies offer products that are a 30-year term. But effectively, whenever those term of years ends, the policy expires. And so, if you don't die in that 20-year period, you've paid the premiums, you didn't get anything for it. And again, back to the actuaries at the insurance company, they know the odds are that Shay is not going to die in the next 20 years. So, do you think term insurance is expensive or cheap? Cheap. It's cheap. Yeah, it's cheap because the odds of the insurance company paying anything are really low.

You'd be surprised probably to know that statistically only 1 to 3% of term insurance policies ever pay. Wow. It's a pretty good business model.

Shay

Foulk: That's a really good business.

Josh

Waite: 97% of the time you collect premiums and you don't pay anything out.

Shay

Foulk: But it offers a level of coverage. You know, we talk about here peace of mind at night. I think I have it on one of the last slides here, just having peace of mind knowing that your business is protected. What's that worth to you?

Josh

Waite: Oh yeah, I own a lot of term insurance because I've got a young family and I've got a business and I want to make sure if something happens to me, those people are protected. Whole life insurance, again, if we're just thinking of the name, the name kind of gives it away. It's there for your whole life. At no point does it expire, whether it's 20 or 30 years down the road. And because we all will die one day, the insurance company has to charge you significantly more for whole life insurance because the probability of them paying out is 100%. Yeah, we went from 1% to 3% to 100%. Now, there's other aspects to whole life insurance that can be very favorable or controversial depending on who you're talking to. But if you think of whole life insurance as a piece of property, which I think most of your listeners can wrap their mind around that. I mean, you're paying a premium.

Think of it like a mortgage payment. And each payment that you make builds equity in your piece of property, whether that's land or life insurance. That equity builds up inside the policy and you can access it. Think of it as a line of credit or not a line of credit, an equity loan against it. But you can access that money along the way and eventually your piece of property is paid for.. And you've got the insurance policy that's there. Your premiums are done after, let's say, 15 years, and the policy is going to be there forever. So, again, each one has its fit. Many of our clients use a combination of the two. They've got term insurance for certain aspects of their life and whole life for others. But if we kind of tie those together back to the key employee insurance for a second, The term insurance for key employees really to protect you against that risk of the employee passing away.

I have whole life insurance on one of our employees, and so I'm paying significantly more for that. If he passes away, I'm protected. But our agreement is, as long as he continues to work for our organization for a certain period of time, I will transfer that policy to him. And all of the equity that's built up inside that is now his. And so, it's almost like an additional retirement package for him. It creates incentive for him to stay and maybe not be intrigued to go somewhere else. But there's ways that you can use life insurance for a number of benefits or tools that you might need.

Shay

Foulk: So, a couple of quick notes on that. I know, and again, this is not advice, it's more so just an observation looking at some of these whole life policies. I know that farm operations will sometimes use a whole life policy throughout, you know, throughout their lifetime as they continue on, maybe starting in their 20s or 30s. And then by the time they're 50, 60, 70 years old, if they've built the business to where it's at a comfortable financial level, they'll use a cash value out of that for, you know, they'll pull the equity out of that or the loan against the equity in that policy to make additional land purchases or do something later in life because they know the people in their lives that are in the farm operation are taken care of. Is that a fair assessment?

Josh

Waite: Absolutely.

Shay

Foulk: Okay, and then the other thing too is on the flip side, you can't do that with term, you know, on your term insurance coverage. No bank, no lender is going to lend to you based off of a term policy because there's no actual equity in it. And even if you put, you know, Bank Institution A on there, there's no guarantee of how that policy pays out and You know, nobody wants to deal with that paperwork either. So just for a little bit of additional understanding on that, we've talked here kind of about, you know, having 100% level of coverage or being able to fully buy out the business with a life insurance policy or having enough money in a whole life policy when it pays out in the event of death for the family operation to continue on. What scenarios might it be that you wouldn't have 100% level of coverage?

Maybe you only need to insure 30, 40, 50% of a situation like that, or those operations that maybe have cash on hand or have additional income, uh, maybe have part of an estate that they're in that will pay out down the road. What are considerations for levels of coverage that we maybe haven't addressed?

Josh

Waite: Yeah, it's a good question. And I think, I mean, insurance at the end of the day is, for the most part, addressing risk. And it's a question of how much risk do you want to take on yourself versus how much risk do you want to offload to an insurance company. And certainly there's metrics for that. There's also kind of comfort level with risk that someone's, um, someone's willing to take. But, um, you know, certainly all the factors that you just listed could come into play based on someone's situation. I mean, whether I'm talking to a business owner, a farmer, or, or a physician, I mean, the level of coverage that they're going to carry is going to vary based on their specific unique circumstances.

And I know we're a broken record here, but that comes back to Having a financial planner that you're working with that's going to ask you the good questions to evaluate, okay, if something happens to Shay tomorrow, what does he want to make sure is provided for his family? Or what, what is the outcome that he desires for the family farm? And then from there, you evaluate what's, what's the appropriate amount of insurance and how much of that risk you want to insure or take on yourself.

Shay

Foulk: There's risk management in different investment strategies too. Of course, we've seen a whole lot of interesting things here recently, whether you're involved with, you know, Robinhood trading or, you know, you have stonks that are going nowhere but up, right? You know, there's a lot of jokes going on out there. So, I guess just from an investment strategy and even from an insurance standpoint is everybody has different comfort levels with risk. And, you know, maybe you're not— we referenced it earlier— when you move into that retirement phase, if you become risk-averse, it might be beneficial to work with someone like a financial planner to encourage you to maybe take a little bit more risk than what you're comfortable with.

Just as consideration, I mean, you're working with lots of different clients and understand you see things differently than what, you know, we as farmers or we as people that are running our business and are not financial planners or financial consultants may look at that differently.

Josh

Waite: Yep. The only other thought I'd throw in there on insurance, especially life insurance in the context of what we're talking about, is is often insurance is just a more efficient way to solve the problem, right? Because through insurance, you're paying pennies on the dollar for what you're actually getting. I mean, the fact that term insurance is exceptionally cheap is because the odds are you're not going to pass away. So, it doesn't cost you $1 million to insure a $1 million risk. And so, That's where insurance is often a tool used because it's just a more efficient way to do it. I mean, I've got clients that could self-insure.

Like their net worth is at a level where the financial plan says, you know, "Shay, you could self-insure." But they choose not to because they put on their business person hat and they say, "This just makes more sense to pay pennies on the dollar to check the box and know that that risk is covered." so that I don't have to think about it. So yeah, just, I mean, insurance can be really complicated. Often it's a four-letter word, right? No, nobody wants to talk to their insurance agent, own more insurance. But again, a good advisor is going to ask the right questions and help you think through that appropriately.

Shay

Foulk: Another way to think about it, you know, insurance, crop insurance is the hardest thing that farmers have to do one time a year. And you almost, unless you're disciplined in it and you work with it frequently and you have to think about it, or unless you've taken the time to really educate yourself on it, it can be an extremely frustrating process. So if you're listening to this insurance conversation, you're thinking, ugh, you know, insurance is that four-letter word, uh, maybe need to kind of reframe your mindset on that and think about it a little bit differently on what it can do for your business. I really like how you said that, you know, it's a more efficient way to solve the problem. The farm operation is going to go on most likely. You know, there's always a risk of it not, but the farm operation is probably going to go on. You're going to find a way to make it work.

It just might cause way more heartache, way more family strife, way more conflict, communication issues than it needs to, than having a good plan in place.

Josh

Waite: Absolutely.

Shay

Foulk: So I think we're kind of getting towards the end here. Wrapping up, you know, again, we have a, we have a good outlook for 2021. And I wanted to bring up this conversation because if, if you do have black ink on your paper and your projections and you're moving throughout the year, you feel good about the season, you're getting to the end of 2021, you maybe haven't done as much of this as, as you should have, or, or you had a good year in 2020 and you're still trying to figure out what the future looks like, where to make these decisions moving forward, reach out to someone that's a financial planner.

And even just meeting back up with your current financial planner Or if you, you know, from the conversations that we've had here today, if you've maybe had questions in your mind, just see what else is out there on financial planning and make sure that you're working with the right person. Because not only with a high rate of turnover in the industry generally for financial planners, but also just with the people that you work with wanting to make sure that you're on the same, on the same page, that they understand what's going on with your business, they understand what's going on in the farm operation and the goals that you have. Please take some time to keep some of these things in consideration, not only on the investment side, but also on the insurance side as part of the risk reduction.

And we mentioned it earlier, Josh, but I think the biggest thing, and you can maybe speak to this on your clients, is just having peace of mind that your business is taken care of, your family's taken care of, and that you know that you've, at the end of the night, done everything that you can to ensure those people are taken care of if something were to happen to you.

Josh

Waite: Yeah. And you've got the terminology peace of mind. I mean, when I think about what I love about what we do, it's all about creating peace of mind. When individuals feel confident in their planning, I believe they live their best life today, not their best life in retirement. Also. But when you have a plan that says, you know, I know I'm on track to be able to retire one day, to transition the business one day, today you live better. I mean, it could mean that you're more generous with your time or your resources because you know that you're on track and you have a really good year in 2021. You've got a plan that says we're already on track for where we want to be. That puts you in a position where either you spend that money, take the kids or grandkids on a trip, or you give more money to your church, whatever that is. We see that happen all the time.

And those light bulbs come on in our clients' lives. And that's what's really rewarding about what we do is helping people be able to live their best life now.

Shay

Foulk: I love that. Have you ever heard about the farmer that had the second life?

Josh

Waite: No.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, me neither. We get one go-around at this. You know, whatever, whatever is beyond us and whatever your beliefs are, it's, it's just really interesting. I love that of the peace of mind and really living in the moment and thinking about what you have in front of you and why that's so important.

Josh

Waite: Yeah.

Shay

Foulk: So I kind of want to wrap up the conversation with that. I appreciate that note. And, you know, I just want to thank, you know, thank you and thanks to Melissa for getting us rounded up here and the team and what you do here. I think you're, you know, your message is having an impact on the people that surround you. And it's very clear to me that you do have that impact. It's clear to me, as it should be to the listeners, that when you're working with people who truly care for your wellbeing and care for what your future holds, those are the people that you want to hitch your wagon to. And those are, those are the teams that you want to be a part of. So just thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation, Josh. If, if someone wants to reach out to you or get ahold of someone at the office or with your team, how might How might they do that?

Josh

Waite: Yeah, probably the best way to find us is just at our website. It's www.waitefinancialgrp.com. So waitefinancialgrp.com. Connect with anybody on our team, Melissa, Hannah, Tyler, Shawn, and Chris, myself. Find one of us and we'll get back to you. But I really appreciate this opportunity. This has been a lot of fun and I just encourage you to keep keep doing what you're doing here. This is good stuff. Financial planning is a topic near and dear to my heart, but just the agricultural industry and my upbringing, that industry needs this help just as much as anybody else. So, appreciate the opportunity.

Shay

Foulk: Absolutely. Thanks, Josh. And as always, here to provide value and perspective to the listeners, the Ag View Pitch. Thank you so much for tuning in, and we will catch you next time.