Opportunity management

Shay

Foulk: Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today you have the Ag View Solutions team, uh, sans Jeremy. He might hop on here in a little bit, but we're talking opportunities. And this is a discussion, Andy, that you had actually brought up. Looking at the size of the opportunities that are coming to operations has continually gotten larger over the last few years. And when we look over the next decade, I think what's going to continue to happen is we're going to have larger and larger opportunities. And this may be in the form of collaboration, this may be in the form of land. But it seems that with the clients that we work with, it's no longer 80 acres coming up for rent or 100 acres coming up for sale. It's 1,000 acres coming up for rent or 500 or 1,000 acres coming up for sale.

Do you want to, Andy, I guess, just kind of dive into what your thoughts have been behind this and maybe some of the opportunities that you've seen in your area to give the listeners a foundation?

Unknown: Yeah, no, I think I, you know, I brought this idea up. I just said it's, it's going to be difficult because as we think about our own businesses and even the clients that we work with is how do we navigate this because with these large opportunities, we can't tackle them all. It's not like, you know, adding 80 acres a year or a couple 80s a year when you start growing by large hundreds or thousands of acres. It's— these are big bites that take a couple years to recuperate the additional working capital needs and, and labor and equipment and everything. So it's, are we making decisions today that will allow us to take advantage of opportunities that we want to take advantage of in the future? So that's— I think that's kind of the process that I wanted to have the conversation around.

Shay

Foulk: How do you know if it's the right opportunity?

Unknown: That's, that's a good question for the group. I don't think you ever know if it's the correct opportunity, but it's— are we thinking through the proper steps of the opportunity before we, we jump with both feet in?

Shay

Foulk: Chris, you've, you've seen a lot of this probably over the last you know, 3 decades of consulting with farm operations, how do you approach the, maybe the methodology that Andy is referring to for how you seek those opportunities or how do you analyze them when they come to you? Mm-hmm.

Chris

Barron: Well, sometimes they come to you, sometimes you hunt 'em down, and then sometimes, in my experience, it's been interesting because it, you know, sometimes you think you want something until all of a sudden it's in front of you and then you're like, holy shit, how am I gonna do this now? And one of the things that I've observed some people do that's really a good approach is to really, um, and I just wrote a bunch of them down while you guys were talking there, is just to document the impact it's going to have on the business, both from a positive and a negative. So it's the pros and the cons of that opportunity. And some of the words I just wrote down that I think are super important to think about And, you know, each situation is really the only way you can answer those, those questions.

But, you know, it's workload capacity, it's the quality impact potentially, you know, because when you do more, sometimes you have to give up on something else. It's the efficiency of the operation, but there's a whole bunch of layers underneath efficiency, which include things like, you know, the, the equipment efficiency or the overhead efficiencies in terms of financials of spreading those fixed costs out over more acres. And it's doing that math. And then I also think, you know, when you think of opportunities, when you take on an opportunity, it will influence other opportunities potentially either negatively or positively. So you need to write those things down.

And then back to the capacity, when you start doing something, I think measuring, the impact of what it's doing when you first start doing it, super important because theoretically, hopefully operations already have a baseline of time and a baseline of their efficiency. But that time measurement of whatever that you're doing, I think super important. You know, anytime in the last probably decade, I learned this a couple of decades ago, but is to measure. You can't improve what you don't measure. So measure any kind of a change in how much extra did that take, and then how much extra did it generate, you know. So what is that margin of not only just money but efficiency and impacts and all those other areas.

And then the last one I would mention is, um, you know, you guys were talking about land specifically, but there's also, you know, livestock opportunities and just other profit centers and stuff. And with that, it's, it's also And I use the word distance. Okay. It's not just how far you got to drive to get to another field or whatever, but the distance that it takes you away from your core competency of the business. So when you take on that opportunity, will it remove you? Will it, will it make you distant from what you're really good at and what your core competency is? And so if you take on those opportunities, it's taking them on because like Andy said, you're taking on an opportunity that is probably, you know, a really good thing, but is it so big that it takes you away, or can you scale it in a way that you can handle it, you know?

And, and I think the last thing I'll say, and I'll shut up here for a minute—

Shay

Foulk: shut up for a minute—

Chris

Barron: yeah, is the, is the labor portion of it. Because the labor, you know, the labor portion of it doesn't mean you have to do it, but you need to make sure you got enough horsepower in the system to manage it too. So those are You know, when we knew, when I knew we were gonna be talking about opportunities, I did some thinking on this and that's just my, been my experience on those.

Shay

Foulk: So, so Joe, the question, or maybe one thing that Chris didn't mention as much there was the culture of the operation, you know, your operation and how not just you, but your team members, your partners, your spouse feels about opportunities and how they react to growth.— and I know you've experienced some of that over the years. Can you talk about how these opportunities or these types of opportunities when you've analyzed them have impacted the culture or how you've prepared the culture for taking on those opportunities?

Unknown: Well, you know, the culture of the operation is probably the number one thing because you can't take on anything if you don't have employees or especially if you have employees that are just already feel burnout all the time. And, you know, I know of operations that the culture is, oh God, another 250 acres. We can't, you know, all we do is work anyway, you know, and they're just burnt out. And then I've also seen operations where nobody's burnt out and they enjoy what they're doing. And when a big opportunity comes up, you know, the consensus across the employees when you bring it to them is, "Yeah, let's go." You know, "We can take that on.

There's room, you know, to be able to do that." I've seen there's a, you know, as we talk to clients across the Midwest, Corn Belt, whatever, a lot of them talk about this opportunity thing and they're already stretched about as thin as they can. And, you know, they all are kind of at this precipice of we need that high-level employee. Somebody that's going to be able to manage, somebody that's going to be able to create that room in the system. Because, you know, you take on, you know, you grow your operation by 25-30%, you know, there's going to be a little bit more office time needed, a little more planning time. And having another high-level employee that can, uh, you know, man, help manage the day-to-day is, has been like rocket fuel for some operators.

Shay

Foulk: And, and I didn't want to— I didn't mean to pigeonhole you into the culture question. I just, I, I think you've done a really good job of that in your operation. Is there anything else that you think about when it comes to these opportunities, or when you were thinking about, you know, getting together and having this conversation today around how to, how to approach the opportunities, or the speed at which you feel that the opportunities are coming at you? Because I I think that's the, the principle or kind of the premise why we wanted to have this conversation is we're seeing it time and time again, not only in our own operations, but with the people that we work with of these passive op— they're here, you know, 2025 as we're recording this, they're here now and they're going to be here for the next 10 years.

So anything else that you think about from the opportunities discussion?

Unknown: Well, you know, the There's also the collaborative side of it. I had a pretty large growth opportunity that, you know, trying to harvest it all was going to be my issue. And, you know, buying another combine, you know, was another ass we need to put into a seat. You know, it was, you know, the whole logistics of that. And I went to some neighbors that are good friends of mine and You know, they had room in their harvest system. They're a little bit over, over, over, you know, have a little more equipment than what they need for the acres. And they're like, absolutely, we're super interested in doing that. So, you know, when you're thinking about that, you know, us as farmers tend to think, well, we need to do it all ourselves. You know, we need to have control out of all all of that.

And maybe that is the case, but I encourage people to think a little bit more abstractly about, uh, the different ways that you can get the work done. Like, you know, narrow it down. What actually is my pinch, and what can I do to, to help make, to help make that happen by collaborating with others?

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, you don't have to do it all yourself when it comes to the opportunities, and I would argue that you can't do it all yourself. You whether that's adding the strategic person, like you said, forming collaborations locally. And I think it's probably important to hit on that collaborative piece here. It seems like maybe the last 18 to 24 months or so, we probably haven't talked about that as much, but we're really starting to get more interest in how does it look if I were to add 1,000 acres or 2,000 acres or whatever the, percentage growth is in your operation. How do I go about doing that? And I think people are quickly starting to realize that, you know, if you want to go fast, do it alone. If you want to go far, do it together. And maybe there's opportunities from a collaborative standpoint to, to make that come true.

And Andy, you've done a lot of that in your businesses of, you know, adding the right people to the team and coordinating and just kind of moving the chess pieces around to make sure that that rising tide kind of floats all ships. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, the collaborative outlook and, and what's made sense for you and your operation?

Unknown: Uh, it's been a unique way to, to be different than everybody else. You know, everybody that is looking to grow, they say, well, I just, you know, I just want to rent more ground or pick up more land. And, you know, you got to kind of think long term. It's like, hey, is what's going to help you slow down, help us pick up, mitigate some, some tax and some, some workload in the meantime. So that's, you know, kind of how the whole collaboration thing started. But I, I do think it's really unique back to the comment that in ag, we feel like we are so independent, we have to do anything, everything ourselves, where you look at all the other industries across the US, and there's a ton of collaboration that takes place on different projects and things like that. So why can't we use some of those same models in production ag?

And, and once you start doing that, the efficiencies you gain and, and the knowledge too, it's, it's as you start working with these people very closely, it's, you always seem to learn something from them you had, you either knew very little about or nothing about. So that's, it's been really unique because it allows you to grow without crazy amount of workload and capacity needs. And in the meantime, being able to learn stuff at the same time.

Shay

Foulk: You know, I think construction is probably a great example of that. I know you're having a lot of fun with that right now. You don't have, you know, you have a general contractor that subcontracts and they do different bits and pieces. And, and that's a standard. I mean, that's normal. And sometimes we feel like, I need to plant and spray and do the landowner management and do the land purchasing, you know, it's, we wear 100 hats as farmers. And I'm I'm not sure that's entirely necessary. So I like your comment there, Chris. I can see your wheels are turning and you're writing stuff down. I got one question that I want to ask you in particular to the financial analysis side of this. I had a gentleman in my office here last week and essentially we were looking at one of these opportunities or he was preemptively planning.

And so what we did is we took his numbers and plugged them into Profit Manager. And said, what happens if I add 400 acres or 800 acres or 1,000 acres? And it's, it's really easy to make those adjustments in a tool like Profit Manager. I'm not saying you have to use Profit Manager, but really what you're analyzing is the contribution margin or the contribution deduction sometimes that occurs when these opportunities come. Chris, how have you analyzed some of these opportunities financially outside of just a gut instinct of yes, this feels good, no, it doesn't feel good, or do we have, you know, the capacity and the workload, some of those other things that you've referenced?

Chris

Barron: Yeah, the first thing I would say is what you brought up is a tool that has all of the— theoretically anyway, you put in all of those parameters and all those variables so that you can see how does it impact from wherever your baseline is at any of those changes. And I think that's such a huge thing. That's why Profit Manager has been so useful and so, um, just such a valuable tool, you know, to analyze that even if operations have, you know, livestock, cattle, or dairy or whatever, because they typically have this other profit center. So it's, it's isolating those. The only thing though, Shay, that I would like to make sure that's super important as it correlates with the financials is typically the financials and can almost be a no-brainer.

I'm not saying they are because they definitely need to be measured, and, and there's always cost that goes along with, with the improvement. But it's the, it's the people part. I mean, we can get all the numbers right and we can get the financials figured out, and we need to, in concert with that, be really working on roles, responsibilities, decision rights, expectations, and all that kind of stuff.

So I don't know if I'm answering your question because I'm bouncing right over to the, to the people part, but But a lot of times in collaboration, the numbers, you know, when especially when you start talking machinery, when you start talking labor sharing, you know, when you start talking, you know, critical mass of the brainpower, kind of like Joe mentioned, you know, all of a sudden you've got, you know, somebody with vested interest as opposed to a hired employee that you're just going to write a check to. Now you've got, you know, a whole different structure that I think financially really stabilizes stuff. But then you got to figure out how everybody gets along too.

Shay

Foulk: I, I don't want to get too deep into the collaboration piece here, but I'll, I'll give you an example. And it starts with a story from my household. It was 9 o'clock last week, and my wife and I had kind of sat down. The girls were to bed, and she is a wonderful cook, and she had baked these strawberry shortcake little muffin things. And I was sitting in the living room, and she said, hey, would you want one? I said, yeah, that sounds great. And she goes, okay, well you know, do you want me to cut it into pieces? And I was like, ah, you know, I don't care, whatever. And she's like, okay, well, do you want whipped cream on it? I was like, yeah, sure, that's fine. And then she's like, well, do you want the whipped cream on top or the strawberries on top? And I'm like, just bring me the damn shortcake. I don't, you know, I don't care.

But what the moral of the story there is, you make so many decisions in a day when you're going at it alone that stuff like that is just like, I don't— I just want the shortcake. Like, I'll eat it if you bring You know, give me a box of strawberries and a can of whipped cream and the shortcake and I'll figure it out. But I say that from the standpoint of when you have someone in a collaborative opportunity or when you're working with an advisor or when you are analyzing some of these decisions and you have someone else there that can help you on the brainpower front and you're not having to focus on 1,000 different things, you make better decisions. And I think that's where the collaboration comes in or hiring the strategic employee, you know, and some of that comes into like the salary outlook of, well, I can't afford to hire Joe because, you know, he wants too much money.

Well, if Joe has taken 30% of the decisions off your plate that you don't have to think about that portion of the business and you can focus on what you're good at, there's a tremendous amount of value there. So I bring that up from the standpoint, not just for collaboration, but when you think about these opportunities is what does it take to realize the efficiencies of the opportunities and to get the people part right? Like you said, Chris, find the people that have the right skills and the right assets in order to make that happen. Joe, you're shaking your head there. I know you've hired some really great people that have allowed you to expand and grow into that in your business over the years?

Unknown: There's a, there's a saying that in my operation is, I don't need to know how the sausage is made, I just need it made. And that, that is, uh, goes back to the high-level employee. You don't have— they're just going to make it. And, and, uh, it's been that way in the office for me. Now that I got an operations manager, that's really, really helped clear the plate to, to be able to, you know, be a little more present for the family and then also for the business itself.

Shay

Foulk: Mm-hmm. One thing that I want to make sure we don't miss out on here in our area, here in the last 3 weeks, there's been 4 or 5 farms that have come for sale. And they're, you know, 100 to 300-acre tracts. And there's a lot of sales. And there's going to be a lot of sales because there's a lot of people that are far enough away from the farm as it's always been. I mean, this isn't anything new. But I think the dollars have gotten so much bigger that it seems like such a bite to chew. I mean, you know, we're looking at, we're looking at potentially $16,000 an acre in our area. Andy, I know that's probably like a deal in some areas in Northeast Indiana, depending on what solar pressure or, you know, different cultural communities. Have run, have run the prices to.

But I mean, how do you guys, how do you guys approach these massive land opportunities that are coming up without being absolutely strapped on cash? And what do you think the future holds for that? Because I haven't figured that one out yet. So that's open to whoever.

Unknown: I would say that I can start it. Go ahead. I would say that, and then I'll let Andy take over, is, well, for one, land has always been out of reach. You know, it's always been a stretch. I don't care what time period we're talking about. But looking at the investor side, I mean, I have 38 different landowners that I work with, and I have 5 currently that are looking for another 80 or 120. The challenge that I have in my area is, is that the buyer or the sellers are at 16.5 and the buyers are 14.5 and nobody's budging right now. Yeah. So, but that investor side, you know, to help with the capital generally is, you know, obviously a good place to start. And then I'll let Andy take over. Yeah, it's, I think just being kind of picky. I totally agree with Joe that you're not going to be able to capitalize on all this land that comes for sale no matter what your goals are.

But, you know, for Abby and I, we, you know, we know long term we want to own X amount of acres before we retire, but it doesn't mean that you buy every piece that comes for sale because one, you can't afford to. Here, it's, it's just being selective of, okay, well, we can, we can handle these kind of payments a year to make this work. So how are we going to use those resources?

Shay

Foulk: Chris?

Chris

Barron: Yeah, I think it's going to be a big balancing act as we move forward too, because like you said, you know, the, the price of land and then where interest rates at and what kind of competition are you dealing with, because I think there's some regional differences too, to where, you know, there's still some areas, at least in kind of what we're all seeing, is, you know, you get into certain parts of the country, there's still some deals yet, you know, relative to, to that given area. But there's also some areas where it's tough. I mean, and I think guys are going to have to really watch, um, you know, as we always, always have had to, but I think guys really got to watch that debt-to-asset ratio.

And then the most important number to watch and keep an eye on, I think, as we talk about opportunities is just making sure on that financial component is there's really one number that's super important, and that's debt service. And making sure that, you know, that debt service number is cash flowable when we're in a trough, when the commodity prices are low and the cost of production is high. You know, what is our burn rate? And can we tolerate 2 years or 3 years in a trough and manage to be able to make that debt service payment along with cash flowing so that we don't get upside down too much. And then making sure, back to the debt-to-asset, that there's enough powder there that if we need to refinance because we get into a super difficult position, that we can pull some of that forward if we have to refinance.

And so I think Moving forward, a lot of us are going to have to, you know, one of the opportunities for us is just to build financial strength. I think too, it's not always like Andy said, you know, buying, you know, passing on some pieces is opportunity sometimes too, because you're building your financial stability, I think. Or as Mo Russell always used to put it, you need to try to be bulletproofing your balance sheet for a period of time before you jump on some of those financial purchases or opportunities that way.

Shay

Foulk: I, I forget who said it earlier. It might have been you, Chris, but the, the premise was saying yes to something is saying no to something else.

Chris

Barron: That would be Alyssa that always says that.

Shay

Foulk: Okay, well, you might have reiterated it. Can you think off top of your head of an opportunity, or, you know, what comes to mind first that you said no to that looking back you're glad that you did? Or the opposite, something that you said yes to that you wish you wanted of?

Chris

Barron: You know, I, I still, I go back to what a lot of the dads have always said in dad's wisdom. I wish I would have taken more risk. One specific thing we did at one point, which if, as I say it now, it'll sound really stupid, but you know, it's easy, you know, it's amazing how hindsight's 20/20. But when we, we moved our grain system from one farm to another and it was going to be an expense probably equal to buying a farm and a half or something, you know. And at the time, my thought was, I'm going to sell some land to fund that because I don't want to get ourselves in a debt-to-asset position where, you know, where we didn't have what I just talked about, you know, it was going to really stretch us. And so we sold a farm to pay for that transition. At the time. And that was back when land values were around $5,000 an acre. Now they're more than double that.

And I eliminated a bunch of debt, but on the same token, the land values continue to go up. And we were in a position where we had to have that infrastructure, but I wasn't willing to take that much risk at the time. Hindsight's 20/20. I'd take the risk now, but at the time it was just too much. And I wanted to build the grain system at the time in a way that I want to skimp on anything. I wanted to make sure it was, it was exactly what we wanted for the future, and it was going to take a ton of money. And so I took some of our other assets at, you know, looking back on it now, I wish we wouldn't have done that, but hindsight's always 20/20.

Shay

Foulk: I guess I'd pick on you a little bit there though, because, you know, when I know in your operation that how the land is held, the intent is that you never sell it, which you did at that point. But from a valuation standpoint, is that really a fair comparison? Because if the intent is to never sell the land, how do you decide whether that's a good or a bad, um, a good or a bad investment when it comes to other areas of the operation? So you invested in the infrastructure of the business, Are you saying that you're never going to sell land again moving forward because of the lesson learned from that?

Chris

Barron: Personally, yeah. I can't predict how the next generation is going to run things, but I, I would use that lesson and educate the next generation on that experience. And then they're gonna have to make up their own mind as to what the right thing to do is. But part of the reason I did it, and if I was there again, I might actually do it again, maybe, I don't know, because You know, my brother-in-law and I always used to go back and forth on opportunities. We were like oil and water in a bucket when we were together talking about opportunities. And, you know, my opportunities always weren't necessarily buying more land. It was making sure we had the infrastructure in place for the next generation because we've been able to rent some— rent ground, and we've also had some additional profit centers.

You know, we've had a seed business and, and we've you know, been able to do some other profit center type things. And my goal was to figure out how do I make the operation in such a way that multiple generations, you know, more people can come back in the family. And so I was trying to figure out how to make sure we had enough infrastructure. I wanted a good shop. I wanted, you know, I mean, damn, the freaking shop cost as much as a damn farm. Um, when we built the shop, you know, the grain system cost what two farms are worth. I sold one to pay for half of it. So, you know, and, and so in all those expanses, I just wanted to make sure that our debt-to-asset was tolerable in the process of that. So yeah, it slowed down our ability to buy land for a while, but now we're in a position again where I think we can buy land, you know, and in fact I know we can.

So, but the problem is we're going to be buying, you know, like you said, $1,600 an acre land probably, as opposed to the $5,000. But it's kind of—

Shay

Foulk: not $1,600. Or 6,600 would be pretty good.

Chris

Barron: I think we all do that. 16,000. I got a number written here I looked at wrong. But, but yeah, yeah. You know, that's the thing though, is I think buying, buying land is, is a key thing. But I think, you know, when we're looking at these opportunities, got to look at all these opportunities holistically.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah. Andy, anything that comes to mind on the opportunity piece?

Unknown: I think we hit on a lot of them. It's just make sure you're, as you're saying yes to opportunities, you remind yourself what you're saying no to, like we were just talking about. And then the biggest thing for me always is, is yes, there's an opportunity in the present. How's that going to affect the opportunity that, that I can kind of see in the horizon of next year, you know, in the next 1 to 3 years? So am I, am I making decisions today that I'm not going to regret in the near future because I, I just wanted to grow?

Shay

Foulk: Joe, any closing thoughts here?

Unknown: Well, just like Andy said, you know, the, um, you just want to make sure that you're, if you're saying yes to something today, what are you possibly going to say no to tomorrow? And making sure that it's the right opportunity. And then let, and then Lastly, listen, you know, you can't, you can't underestimate the value or overestimate the value of scenario planning. And not to necessarily give Profit Manager a plug, I mean, I've seen Harvest Profit does an incredible job as well. But having something that is static as far as the categories that you're using, to go in and scenario plan what, what does this look like. And I knew I had this growth opportunity was on the horizon and we were in the middle of it. And then I had this, you know, rockstar employee that I had that came along and he was going to be expensive.

I was competing with union wages and And when I started plugging stuff into Profit Manager with the added acreage and even bringing on this 6-figure employee, believe it or not, my, you know, my return to management actually went down $5 an acre, even adding that employee on. And so sometimes when you break, you know, break things down to that granular level, it helps, you know, it shows the way. And so that's, that'd be my parting thought.

Shay

Foulk: And I will, I will plug Profit Manager from the standpoint of, and the difference with some of the other systems out there is when you buy Profit Manager, you have this team to help you answer those questions. I mean, that's what, that's what we're here for. We're here to help you run those scenarios. You know, we got to draw the line at what's consulting versus, you know, running analysis in Profit Manager, but if you want to run a scenario and say, what does it look like for me to add 400 or 800 or 1,000 acres, or to, to add this crop and do a profit analysis, or to add this employee and these acres, that's, that's exactly what Profit Manager has been designed for. So I will plug that. And I guess my parting thoughts, and then I'll let Chris close out here, is that what we didn't talk about is we also have people come and say, we don't have opportunities in our area.

You know, whatever that is. And they just, they can't see the forest for the trees. I think that's the opposite of what Chris said, or in addition to what Chris said, is sometimes opportunities come to you and sometimes you gotta go hunt them down. And the answer's always no if you don't ask. So get your numbers together, have, you know, have your information prepared, have a professional presentation. Have the backing or the buy-in from the lending institution that you're working with, if that's what you're going to need before you approach an opportunity. Do your homework and get your numbers together and look at what it would take to actually present those opportunities of buying land or working with an investor or taking on Acres for Cash rent or moving a diversification into a different business. Go and hunt those opportunities down.

I, I'm not one to sit here and allow people to give me the excuse of there's no opportunities because I think there's so many opportunities out there that you probably haven't done your diligence if you think that that's the camp that you're in. So that's, that's my parting thought. Chris?

Chris

Barron: Yeah, I think a couple of things. I guess, you know, one of the things we do with our clients is we, um, at a certain stage anyway of, of their business development as we work with them, is we help them think about the vision of the business. Where do they want to go? And as we work through this with them, and those who are listening that we work with are going to understand this, is, you know, it's, it's really mapping out where you're at right now and making sure there's a clear understanding. It was just with a great farm yesterday that, you know, once we mapped out where they were at and their baseline for how everything existed, where their profit centers were in their, their business, and we started mapping out where they wanted to be in 10 years You know, all of a sudden you have a vision, you have a target from which to get to.

And then as those opportunities occur during that timeframe, as you're trying to get from point A to point B, you've already identified what opportunities you want to tackle because that's part of that vision. And whether you go hunt for them or they show up is, you know, is a part of that, but you know, you know what you say yes to, what you say no to much better. The financials fit better. And with that plan, it doesn't mean some things don't change along the way because they do. But you have that really crystal clear plan. And in concert with that, I think it's important. Again, I always come back to the people part is making sure everybody on your team and your family and your operation have a clear picture of what that vision is. So everybody's pulling the rope the same direction.

When those opportunities come up, it's a hell of a lot easier to talk and work through, because none of these opportunities are easy. There's always like these give and take things, you know, like Joe said earlier, it's the, you know, oh God, I don't want to do more. Well, sometimes more is less, you know, and we see that with spouses sometimes. It's like, well, I never see him as it is now, you know, and if we do this, I'm not gonna ever, you know, we'll know we're gonna hire people, you know. And then it's, and then it's understanding that more people is not an expense, it's an investment. Assuming that you find the right people and you build the thing correctly. So I guess my parting thought is, you know, create the plan, you know, whether we help you or somebody does, you know, have that external look at what the business needs and put that vision together.

And then when these opportunities come, I think you can work them in a lot better. So that's kind of my two cents.

Shay

Foulk: Sounds great, guys. Thank you for the conversation today. And Andy, thank you for the topic here on opportunities. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. If you want to learn more about what we do, you can visit agviewsolutions.com, check out farmprofitmanager.com, or, uh, you know, give us a shout, go to the website, look up our numbers. We're happy to talk through any of those opportunities, and we will catch you next time.