Peer group perspective: Bringing value to the farm

Chris: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch, and today we're going to have a conversation around peer groups and some peer group perspective. We are lucky enough to have with us Brad Downing, who is a farmer, producer, and a seed dealer in Indiana. How's it going today, Brad?

Brad

Downing: Good, doing well.

Chris: Awesome.

Brad

Downing: Out here doing some, uh, home water care irrigation specialist today.

Chris: Water and flowers, in other words, huh?

Brad

Downing: Yes, yeah, doing a really important job today.

Chris: Yep, it's always, it's always good for our, our relationships when we can, uh, um, kind of work around the house once in a while and not always be, um, out on the farm. So what I want to do with you, Brad, today is first of all, um, have you introduce yourself. We're going to talk about peer groups and we're going to talk about the experiences. I want to get a little perspective from you and just kind of talk about how this has looked for you and how it's worked for you. And so what I want to do though is start out and just give a brief introduction again to our peer groups. We at Ag View Solutions, we have several peer groups that we work with and that we facilitate. And the whole process is about getting, you know, 7 or 8 farm operations together. And having them all from different states and having each farm take a turn hosting the operation.

And then when you host, we will go through strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats with your peers based on what things you want drawn out of the operation. It's a 2.5-day process. We ask you as a host to provide people within your organization, within your family, within your business to be interviewed to allow your peers to get some perspective with what's really going on in your business so that we can work on the things that you feel like in your operation you either need to improve or you need to enhance or you're looking for some growth opportunities. And so with that said, Brad, you just came off of hosting, you've been in several of these events where you've been a participant. You showed up and I think the first operation with your group we went to was a large dairy in Wisconsin..

And so you got to experience this deal from being the participant and, and helping do the interviews and then helping to provide action items for that farm operation at the end of the event. And so now that you've been through all of these things, let's start out in the back and then we'll work forward. But you just came off hosting one of these operations, so what are some of the highlights? What are some of the takeaways that you got out of, you know, from a value perspective of being able to host 7 of your, of your farmer peers from other states?

Brad

Downing: Well, I can tell you it's a whole lot easier to go to other people's farms and tell them what you think they're doing right, wrong, or different than it is to have everybody come to your place and tell you what you're doing wrong. Yeah, that's, that's been an interesting paradigm shift, but it's been good. So obviously, Brad Downing, you know, we're owner and operator and CEO of Cross Creek Ag Solutions and Cross Creek Farms, Inc., and also Cross Creek Transport, LLC.

So we had the pleasure of going to 5 operations first and getting to really see the, you know, different intrinsical things and different value systems they have, different things they're doing, and really learning how they got to where they're at, where they're at, what they want to go forward doing, and then us looking at, you know, how can we help them, how can we give our expertise and anything we've learned in our tenure of our career, our business, to help them get there. But now we're just coming off of, you know, earlier this week, the 3 days, like you said, everyone was here, and my head is still spinning, swimming, and sometimes I think it's not even attached right now trying to figure everything out. But it's really good because it gave us a chance. And actually, Chris, this is one of your comments to me a long time ago, I think probably back in 2012 when we met.

Was, you know, it's— you can have a problem and you think you can look at your whole world that you, you know, that you think you're in control of, and you and one other person can look at it, but you're looking at it from two sides. And until you bring everybody in on the back side, you can't see the whole picture in the back side of the globe, I mean, quote unquote, right? And that's what it really did. I mean, it really opened up a lot of things for us to look at, whether it be operationally, financially, structurally, 'Cause even within attitudes or, you know, in core values within our own operation and really looking at what we need to do and how we need to get better. So it was very eye-opening and now starts the process of basically what you guys left us with, with action items and accountability.

And I think that's the one thing that everybody needs to understand is accountability of this is huge with people you trust. And so we are at the place now where we are hoping this week to digest a little more of it, sit down as a group and sit down as my wife and I as owners, and also just go through each piece and say, okay, what is the timeline of getting this done? How do we get it done? And what is the priority of what we want to get done? What comes first?

Chris: Excellent. One of the things I like that you mentioned is the accountability. And so that's one of the things that, that we see as bringing probably the most value in a lot of situations where the action items that get laid out, you might get, it depends on the operation, but you might, let's say, end up with 10 different action items provided by your peers. And they say, you need to do X, Y, Z, number 1. Well, that number 1 thing, somebody in that peer group is gonna say, all right, I wanna hold them accountable to that topic. And so, the one thing that's interesting that we see in all these groups, and your group has matured to this level to where everybody really truly cares about each other. And truly, you almost got to experience this.

It's not something, I mean, we can talk about how much everybody cares all day long, but until you experience and live it, it's a trust thing, isn't it, Brad? And I would like you to talk a little bit about that because if each person in our peer group or in this particular peer group for the Ag View Elite team, has, has, is account— is holding you accountable, but you trust that individual to help you accountable, to be accountable, and you believe them, you're going to trust them, you're going to listen to them. And, and it's a two-way street, isn't it? Have you talked a little bit about that?

Brad

Downing: Sure. You know, it's not just everybody, you know, any farmer in an operation that we have walk into our office and that we would just be willing to open up our books and, you know, our deepest, darkest secrets and challenges we have. I mean, that's just not, that's not human nature to want to be able to do that and trust everybody. So to get to that level, and our group, maybe I can't speak because I've never actually been a part of any other group like this, that was very early on. So that trust factor, it has to be established, in my opinion, for any groups to actually get somewhere and help each other. You have to establish that early on, and it takes a certain— a certain amount of people or a certain type of person to be able to do that and establish that trust. You know, I mean, there's— maybe our group may be different or not, I don't know.

But I will say that anyone in our group currently right now, I can pick up the phone right now and get a hold of them and share anything we have going on, good, bad, or indifferent. And if we needed help right away, I don't think it'd take more than 2 or 3 hours and somebody would be here. So, you know, it's, it's very special to have that. It's very somewhat unusual, especially in ag, because unfortunately in ag, we've all lived under the pretense of previous generations that, you know, we're going to do it on our own. We don't need anybody's help. We're all self-sufficient, independent. And the one thing I would love for this generation, that's, you know, my generation in my 40s, and, you know, all of us that are coming up taking over operations and growing operations is to completely drop that.

Facade that we all have that we don't need help because we all do need help in different forms, different fashions. But you, you can't get better without being together. And you can keep rowing your boat your own direction, but when you link arms with 10 other boats and you're all rowing the direction, you're going to bypass that one boat that's on his own. So it's very imperative to us and very important to us to have people that we can trust and people that have our best interest in mind to be able to come into our operation and have that vulnerability with them so then they too can look at where we're at and start making suggestions or seeing things that we can't see because we're so deep in the trenches all day long. Those kind of things are just super important to us. Mm-hmm.

Chris: One of the things that I notice in all of our peer groups, and you guys exemplify this very much, but You know, we start out making sure that there's distance between all of you. So it's sort of the 4 Ds, and the first D is distance. You know, we want you guys to not be in competition with each other so that you feel comfortable to be vulnerable and you can open up. And, you know, and then the second D is diversity. You know, we like to see the operations at various sizes, at various stages, with various personalities, with, you know, with various goals. And, and, you know, definitions of growth and all that being very diverse, you know. And then the third component, or the third D, is really detailed. You know, we want the details, you know. And you guys just hosted and did a great job. You laid all your financials out.

It just— like you said, you laid out here the issues we have, and we were able to interview, you know, 7 of— 6 or 7 of your key people and figure out what's going on within the operation, what's going on within the family, what's going— what are the dynamics, and how can your peers view into there and understand those details. And that's really the third D is the details. And the last one, probably the most important one is, and you brought it up, is just dedication. It's the dedication of your peers to be there for you. If you picked up the phone, and I would agree with you, you could pick up the phone and call any one of those operators and they'd be there for you in a heartbeat. What I want you to do now is, or go ahead, you got a comment to that?

Brad

Downing: No, no, I said absolutely. I mean, that's one thing that It's just clearly apparent, and it has been from day one, you know, from the first time we met up in Wisconsin. I mean, it's a very close group that started out very fast.

Chris: And that's, that's what I was going to echo, is, you know, have you talk a little bit about your first experience, because I always tell people, you know, we went to Wisconsin with this group for the first meeting. Everybody walked in, nobody really knew each other. We introduced everybody, everybody did their, you know, the first the first afternoon, we always do operational updates. And on the very first meeting, it's always operational, you know, discussion and to explain, you know, your operation and introduction. And it's interesting because, you know, you guys all show up and we've done this several times with several of the peer groups now. That first meeting, everybody walks in, shakes hands, gets to know each other. But by the end of the 2.5 days, everybody's hugging and they're best friends.

You know, if we have done our job, you know, if we've, positioned, you know, the right people together. And that's one of the things that we, we take to heart and we try to do really to the best of our ability anyway, is to vet the operations. We don't just want to put any operation with any operation. We want to understand the dynamics and understand the operation so that when we put you guys together, we put, you know, enough diversity with enough distance that are interested in the details and that will be dedicated, you know, those 4 D's. So talk just a little bit about your experience as a participant. What, you know, what do you know? The question is, is sometimes I think people would look at this and say, well, if I'm not the host and I'm there looking at other operations, do what do I get out of that? You know, what, what would you, how would you answer that question?

Brad

Downing: Sure. I mean, I think, you know, the good Lord puts everybody in your life at the right time, the right place, and sometimes at the right season to be gone with and a right season to be, you know, going forward with. And We truly believe in that and we think, you know, this group was brought together for the right time and the right people were assembled and work through you and you have the ability to understand each one of us. So that's one thing, but you know, the one thing that stands out to me from day one, I've been a part of groups my career, traveling across the Midwest, working with people before I started this company and doing other groups and trying to get other people from other areas.

Sometimes you get a lot of posturing where there's certain— I don't care if we're in a farm group, if we're in any kind of business group, you get some people that just want to posture, want to puff up and explain how good I am and put on a, you know, stained glass masquerade, quote unquote. They want to make sure everything looks perfect, right? We're doing everything right. We're just here to tell you guys how to do stuff. And from day one, I mean, literally the first half hour and we went through those operational get-to-know-yous. Instead of updates. That never happened. There was a sense of vulnerability that said, okay, hey, we're here to learn. We're here because we trust Chris and Alyssa and Ag View Solutions to get us to a place where you need to be with the right people. And here's who we are. Here's where we've been. Here's where we're at. Here's where we hope we can go.

And literally, I think every one of us stood up there and said, okay, here's where we're a mess. So help us out, figure it out. But we're here to work for, you know, this time for the first operation. But it gave us a chance to really break down those walls and start thinking about things. And that's— that takes a little bit of, you know, humility. I think that's a big thing is anybody wants to be in a peer group or anybody that wants to get out of anything in the peer group is there's two main I mean, there's a couple things that you mentioned out of the 4 Ds, but I think there's two other things, is transparency and humility. You need to be transparent from day one, and you need to have it with a little bit of grace and humility that you don't know everything and you're there to learn.

And if you can walk in with those two things and the 4 Ds, you're going to get something big out of it. And, you know, sky's the limit for what you want to do. It just depends on how you want to prioritize it. It's not easy for everybody to be humble when you're in a new group and new people and, you know, you want to put your best face on. But I think that's a big thing, you know, humility and transparency.

Chris: That's awesome. I really like that. And I think you're right. You know, we've seen that in the peer groups when we first have that introduction, just like you said, you know, you know right away that that you've— that, you know, that we have the right people together when everybody's willing to, to say, I have these issues, these are challenges that I have. Because when a producer says to us, you know, I don't think I really want to be in there because I'm— I don't have all my stuff together yet, and I don't want, you know, anybody to see until I get everything fixed. And if it's kind of like saying, you know, I'm I'm gonna start going to the gym after I'm fit, you know.

Brad

Downing: No, that's like saying, that's like saying I want to be a parent, I'm gonna wait, I want to wait till I become the perfect parent, got it all figured out, have enough money to have kids. Well, good luck.

Chris: Yeah, as soon as I can afford it, I'm gonna start having kids, you know.

Brad

Downing: Yeah, it's—

Chris: yeah, and it's just— and, and that's really what it is. I mean, it's— it, it just brings a lot of, um, a lot of value and a lot of perspective that you can take home to One of the last things I want to ask you is I noticed our friend Eric, who's in our peer group that was sitting there, he was like sitting two spaces away from me at this last meeting. One of the things he said is he's like, "I have the longest list I've ever had of things I got to go home and do now." You know, and he was, you know, you were hosting him, and I hear this a lot. I mean, it just, I just bring him up because that was one of his takeaways, you know, and He's like, I don't know which one of these takeaways I need to share. And, you know, so talk a little bit about that.

You know, when, when you go and you're a participant to another farm that's hosting, a lot of times you leave with a whole bunch of your own internal action items, don't you?

Brad

Downing: Every time we've been somewhere, we've always came home with, I think, more than what we left with. Um, you know, we went there and we were kind of having, you know, some operational update to where we're at By the time we left, we looked around and said, okay, you know, maybe we're not as screwed up as what we thought we were. Other people deal with the same things, just different ways. Right. You know, you leave every time, you're helping that operation with your tenure, expertise, any outside observations to help them. But honestly, I think every time you leave, you have sometimes even more things you have to take home and realize, okay, We need to get better at this because I've seen what they've done and how they've made it through it, and we're right there with them.

And there's also some things where they have actually done things better than we have, or they went through the same challenges we have maybe 5 years ago. And during the course of that, it just allows everybody to, you know, flush that out and look at it and say, what would that look like if we would change some things? So yeah, I mean, that's a big thing is when you walk out there, you have I don't care which one it was, which operation, Marcia and I both came home with a laundry list of things to get done. And even this time, you know, obviously everybody gave us, you know, a huge amount of recommendations, I think 4 pages long to be exact. So we have a lot to work through. But the one piece that I can tell you that whether we're in those operations and we come home for ourselves personally, or if this time we hosted, The big thing is accountability.

That is one thing that's big with this group is the accountability that's held up. You can have all the greatest ideas in the world, but sometimes when we get back, we're busy putting out fires again. And when everybody holds you accountable, you tend to want to take action because I want to do what's best for our operation and our growers and our customers we service. But ultimately too, I don't want to let down the group either. I want them to know that their time was well invested in us because we're not just saying, "Oh, that's great. We'll get to it in 5 years. Thanks for being here." Um, you know, we want to make sure that we honor their, their time just as much as we want to honor our customers and our own business too, right?

Chris: Um, that, that's awesome. And one of the— another thing real quick, you know, just, you, you know, you talk about accountability and stuff and you— and just the perspective. And, and, you know, there's, there's the coffee shop talk and then there's the real life stuff, right? And you guys lay out the real life stuff. And, you know, the cool thing is, is, you know, like you said, the vulnerability, the humility, the transparency, those are all really key things. And, and the other thing that I, though, that I've noticed that I wanted to bring up is in your guys's group, there's a, there's a retailer, you've got biologicals, there's a, there's another equipment dealer in your group And you guys all farm, but you also have some additional profit centers that are, you know, very vital to your operational structure.

And I've just noticed that you guys are all, you know, in many cases communicating not just during the meetings, but you guys are communicating all the time. There's a lot of commerce going on between you guys now as a group. So yeah, there is, you know, you guys are, you know, you're working already on the biological side with a bunch of the, the people and learning yourself as you help educate them. And like I said, you know, we've got a couple of other guys that have the machinery and equipment, a few other guys that are, you know, with the, the retail business. And so that's the other cool side of that too, because I think now that you guys have gotten to know each other, um, you know, business is, is not only global, it's domestic, and you guys are moving stuff back and forth and shaking and moving and learning from each other, and it's just really cool to watch.

Brad

Downing: Yeah, it's really exciting because we have many in the group we're doing business with now, and we're doing business with them also, or they're doing business with us, vice versa. But it also— how it's spread, it brings validity because everybody always says, you know, the hardest people to sell your friends and family and the people that live 5 miles away from you, right? It's interesting when you have people that are deeply entrenched in your operation and you've opened up, you know, the entire operation financially, structurally, emotionally, everything else, you know, to them and they still want to continue to do business with you and they want to, you know, tell other people about what you're doing and about, you know, what we all do together. It just spreads. And I think that's, you know, our 3 common core values that we have in our company is transparency, education, ROI.

And, you know, when you have people that can see into the deep details of what you're doing and still choose to do business with you and trust you, I think that speaks volumes about, one, yourself, but it also speaks volumes about what we're doing in ag right now and trying to leave this a better place than what we inherited.

Chris: Exactly. Hey, Brad, any, any final comments, uh, any suggestions that you would have, or things that you would tell other farmers that are considering peer groups or anything like that, and then we'll wrap it up.

Brad

Downing: Sure. Um, I think you're nuts if you're not doing a peer group. I'll leave it at that. That's the key takeaway number one. Um, you know, life was made to do in circles and in groups, not by yourself. I think that goes to aspects of all parts of life, whether it's personal, business, or anything else. You better have good key people around you, and if you don't, you better find them quick. The next thing is Being transparent and vulnerable through everything you do, I think, leads to a much better long-term picture for your life and also your kids' life and anybody else you're planning on leaving this operation to. I think that's something that has to be done and has to eventually, you know, become at the center and the core of your values. So, these groups will, they'll help cultivate that.

But I think that's ultimately something that's a personality that you have to You have to develop over time. The only other thing is, it's been really good to stretch our boundary, I guess I'll say this. There's one thing I know everybody said is, you know, my capacity as a leader and owner of the organization, you know, how far you can stretch yourself before you become too thin. Well, that's one thing, but I think, you know, as humans, we are all made to have larger bandwidth than what we think we can do. And we can stretch and adapt, and we can stretch and adapt.. And being part of these groups will make you stretch and adapt because you'll have to think differently than what you previously have been doing. And I think that's good for all of us.

Chris: Awesome. That's a phenomenal way to wrap up, Brad. You're a great contribution to this peer group, and we really appreciate you hosting this last time. And I think we'll wrap it up here so you can get back to your action items. How's that sound?

Brad

Downing: Sounds good. I'm gonna get back to the first one. The first one for the wife is watering.

Chris: That sounds good. Hey Brad, this has been a phenomenal conversation. You guys have a great operation. You're a visionary. You're a producer that's got a lot going on with all of your profit centers and things, and really appreciate the opportunity to work with you. And especially thanks for your wisdom and your discussion here today. Thanks a lot.

Brad

Downing: Well, thank you, and we love what we do. I hope that's apparent. So thanks a lot, Chris, and thank you for letting us be part of this group.

Chris: You bet. Thanks a lot for, for being part of it, and thanks everybody for listening. If you are interested in a peer group or have other questions, please email me at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com. If you are interested in that, we are in the process of, of doing some more research for possibly another group, and so we wanted to just kind of have a little conversation about some of the things that are out there and the benefits and some of the things that it could bring to your operation. So again, thanks everybody for listening. Thanks to Brad Downing, producer and businessman in, in Indiana. And thanks a lot, and we will catch you again next time on the Ag View Pitch.