The brain of your farm business

Shay: What would you do with a brain if you had one?

Narrator: Do? Why, if I had a brain, I could— I could while away the hours, conferring with the flowers, consulting with the rays. And my head, I'd be scratching while my thoughts were busy hatching if I only had a brain.

Shay: Hey everyone, Shay Foulk here with the Ag View Pitch and wanted to have just a quick conversation around the brain of your farm operation. Now when I say that, might be thinking about a few different things. Maybe there's a person that comes to mind, or maybe you're thinking about your computer or your accounting system or something else. But what we're going to talk about here today is building or having a professional office space in your farm operation. And this conversation stems from a phone call Chris and I had the other day.

We were headed back from a meeting and just talking about the importance of having a professional office space and Chris said something to the effect of, well, I mean, if you're going through your farm operation and you don't have a professional office space, a place to, you know, conduct your business and do things and focus and whatever else, it's basically like walking out, walking around without a brain, you know, what the heck you're going to do without a brain. And it really kind of, you know, hit home with me. And I said, well, where'd you steal that from? He goes, I don't know, I just made it up right now. So in full disclosure, I'm kind of stealing his idea here a little bit.

But You know, we talked about just kicking out a podcast about this and talking about what we see on the consulting side, what we see with Progressive Operations that have really developed the professionalism that we feel is important to not only the future of agriculture, but the future of their business, and improving the quality of life in their business too. So there's several reasons and several things that we're going to talk about in regards to this. But the first thing I wanted to hit on is when we talk about you know, the office space. Office means many things to different people. To some, it's nothing more than, than the computer, you know, all the documents live online anymore. For some operations, they scan everything in, have digital copies, they know where it's all filed. And really, that's all that they need for an office, they can be anywhere.

Some people have a, you know, a desk that's been in the family forever. Some people have a large conference room or a professional business meeting space. Some people just kind of, you know, maybe post up at a bar that they have in the shop, and that's where they, you know, scratch out some of their notes and do paperwork. If you're like me, I've had my office here in the house here for a few years and finally got to the point that I was tired of having my stuff everywhere. So I'll talk a little bit on the personal side of things there in a little bit. But, you know, we're actually in the process of finishing up an office space in our farm operation. Other people, you know, anywhere from their living room, old closets, and their truck truck at the airport, a dryer shack, you know, just a space of the farm operation that's segregated off. We see anything and everything in between.

Uh, same for professional meeting spaces too. So wherever you are office-wise today, we're not saying that you have to build a state-of-the-art facility or that it has to be the absolute premier, you know, top-notch office space that you've ever seen. But what we do want to talk about is some principles that go into this. And the reason for this is many clients ask us about it, you know, they say, well, how do we go about building an office space? How do we budget for this? Can we afford to do it? What's the cost into something like this? When do we know if we're at the critical point of putting in a professional office space? And to answer a few of those questions, the first thing is, you know, it's pretty expensive right now to put in an office space.

It's probably to the tune of $100,000 to $350,000, depending on, you know, what it is that you're putting in and what you're scaling for, for growth, what you want out of a professional meeting space and what you have for existing utilities and infrastructure. But there's no doubt that it is, it's an expensive endeavor. Okay, so we want to, we want to be upfront and honest about that. What we also want to say though, is, you know, it's probably going to make you more money than than you'll ever put into that office space. And that's one of the key reasons why you should that we'll hit on here in just a little bit. You know, I hit on my personal experience here earlier. So for a few years, integrated into the farming operation here in Illinois, and then also with the consulting business, you know, I have a lot going at once. And I tend to have papers everywhere.

And I just have kind of felt really disorganized over the last couple years. And I'm sure many of you can kind of empathize with that. You know, you don't know where stuff is, or you know where it is, but it's hard to find. And then the one time you misplace it, it's something that you need and have to have quickly. And it can be very, very frustrating when it comes to that. And it was honestly starting to stress me out. And so here this last year, you know, we kind of discussed it within our farm operation, and I was ready to, you know, to do whatever it took to get that office space. And so we've been working on that steadily over a few months and have gotten a lot of suggestions from people. And of course, the experiences working with other farm operations and The biggest thing in my mind was just driving the focus towards how do I become more organized?

How do I make it easier to make better decisions in the operation? How do I create a professional space to meet with, you know, clients and landowners and things like that? And then ultimately, how do I take a little bit of separation between my work life and my personal life? And I know that's never easy and the hours aren't just 8 to 5, right? But there is a certain degree of structure that I've built into that and that we see with those who have put in professional office spaces where they're able to maybe separate a little bit more or, you know, turn things off as they move back into the house for the night, as opposed to having the office in the house. So when you think about, you know, the picture of this— Chris's analogy there of having an office is kind of like the brain of the operation.

I just drew a picture that we'll link, we'll link to the podcast and I'll post online or whatever. But the buildings and infrastructure that currently exists, that's kind of like the head, right? The skull. So you have the shop in place, you have the storage buildings, you have somewhere at least under roof to meet with someone if they come in so you're not getting rained on and snowed on. But it's maybe not the best place to be making decisions. And then of course, in the rest of the body or the other parts of the operation, your key foundation or the the legs that you stand on is your accounting and your finance and your marketing and your sales. And then when it comes to the arms of the operation and what it is that you do really well in the business or the things that, you know, continue to make things tick, that's your, that's your operations.

That's your field operations, uh, the processes, the procedures, the decisions that get made on a daily basis, especially in season for continuing to make the farm operation run. And then on the other hand, you have the public relations, the opportunities, the, the next thing that's going to continue to keep the farm running. But to Chris's point, if you don't have a brain of the operation, how do you expect all that other stuff to work? If you don't have a place to focus on the key decisions, if you don't have a place to, you know, make it easier for you to meet with your team or easier to meet with some of these people, whether it is on the operational side or public relations or focusing on the marketing in your business, or, you know, taking the time to dive into your accounting and finances. I thought that was really critical.

And at the core of all of this, of course, is, you know, what holds the farm together. It's the values and the tradition and the legacy that goes on. But if you can't continue to build on that without the brain, without the office in your farm operation, we tend to see things fall apart pretty quickly. And I would mention here at this juncture, the reason why we, why we see it as so important is especially in family farm operations, You know, one of the first reasons or second reason I should say in my list here is people just say, well, what we have is adequate. You know, we got an office space, we got a place for everybody to sit down, a place, a desk. They got a computer. We have a shared printer or whatever else. And eventually that becomes not adequate enough, right?

You know, especially if it's in someone's home and then you got family dynamics, you're meeting in the boss's living room. Which also happens to be your dad or your grandpa or whoever else, it doesn't make the most professional environment. The number one reason why people don't want to focus on it right now, and I said that $100,000 to $350,000, some of you probably opened your eyes and, you know, were shaking your head a little bit. But that's the truth. I mean, that's the reality of it. It costs a lot of money in order to put some of these things in place. And we've seen people that have bought the, you know, FEMA trailers, for lack of a better term, and put office spaces in there.

Or they have built onto existing structures or framed up areas of shops or older outbuildings, all the way up to a professional executive-level corporate headquarters for the farm operation where they're really looking to expand into the future. The third reason that people, you know, say that they don't want to build or haven't built is that they just don't see a need for it. You know, maybe they don't feel that they're at the point of the operation, or there's only one or two of them involved currently, and they're not at a critical mass of adding, you know, people. But what I would encourage you to think about is, what's that legacy like? How do you bring someone into the operation? How do you attract the right talent? And that's going to lead us into some of the reasons why I think that you should and why Chris and I see it as being very beneficial to operations long term.

The number one is just having that professional workspace and also professional meeting space too. It's one thing to meet at someone's kitchen table, and business has been done that way for a long time. Chris and I spend probably 60% of our meetings at kitchen tables or in living rooms, and that's no problem. There's nothing wrong with that as we work with operations to get them to the point where they want to be or to be progressive or whatever else. And honestly, that family environment is so crucial to some of the relations that we work with day to day. But we never feel that we lose that when we're in a professional meeting space. You know, people tend to put pictures in there and have history, talk about the legacy of the farm operation. And that's just as cool of an atmosphere and probably means just as much as the familial aspect of meeting in some of those other places.

The other thing too is, you You know, I want you to think about this with a little bit of perspective. Most farm operations anymore are cash flowing millions of dollars through their operation, if not tens of millions of dollars. Think of another business that's cash flowing tens of millions of dollars that does not have a professional office space. And there's a few out there. But ultimately, when you're at that critical capacity, it is so important to have that available to your team members, to your family members. And then leading into the next number 2 item of why I think that you should maybe consider putting in a professional office space if you haven't, just hiring someone in, you know, anymore in today's environment with the lack or low labor force or willingness to work.

Companies and farm operations and ag businesses across the world are focused on just retaining their key employees. If you can build an operation that has this professionalism, you're going to attract the right talent. Okay. The third thing is growth. Most operations, as we look over the next 5 to 10 years, will continue to grow. And how you define growth is, you know, relevant to your own operation. But whether that's more acres or more personnel or more complexity, or even just growing professionally within the business, that growth is going to continue to occur, and an office space can help facilitate that. The fourth reason here is separating that work-life balance. You know, I said earlier, um, that, that was near and dear to me.

I wanted to move away from the, the chaos of having 4 different office spaces set up throughout my house just for lack of filing system or lack of organization or having so many things going at once. I want to be able to leave the office space at our farm operation and come home and spend time with my wife, spend time with my daughter, and just focus on what's going on here at home. So I know many of you are the same way. You've expressed that. You say if we have an office space at home, we never really shut off because we're guilty of going in and, and focusing on the next thing. That stuff's still going to be there, you know. So let's, let's find a way that we can separate the work-life balance And sometimes that means, you know, being at a different location.

I've heard many people say, you know, live far enough away or have the office far enough away from the farm operation that if it goes up in flames, you're not the first one to see the smoke. And the idea there is not that you're not looking out for your farm operation, but that you're far enough removed from the farm that when you leave, you can focus on your home life, focus on your family, and focus on the things that, that matter outside of the business. Final point here, and what I'll probably wrap up with is just the, the farm operation will make more money by having an office space than what you'll ever put into it. And so let's say you're at the top, and let's say you're at $350,000, maybe, maybe you're at half a million dollars, maybe you're at $500,000 invested, I want you to think about putting into action and putting it into use no different than you would with a shop.

You know, what if you bring in a prospective landowner and pick up an extra 200, 500, 1,000 acres? You know, what's the value of that over time by showing them that you have a professional office space, a professional meeting place? They want to do business with you. They want to continue to grow with you. They appreciate the fact that you are running your business professionally. Okay, so there's one thing. Now let's talk about the focus when it comes to what you're doing in your operation. You know, what if you're able to focus on spending more time on marketing and not have to worry about people walking in and out or worrying about the bathroom flushing next door or worried about the shop work that's going on through the thin wall that you have in your current office space?

Being able to give 100% of your focus and make better decisions is another reason of why you're going to get that money back. And then the third thing is just when you look at the transition planning or the legacy of the farm operation, what we see a lot of times is the next generation is looking at such tremendous opportunities in the agriculture world, whether that's ag businesses, ag retail, things that are involved in the marketing side or the inputs, whatever it may be. There's tremendous opportunities and tremendous dollars out there of when you start making a pros and cons benefits list and looking at that and saying, you know, where do I want to spend my time?

Well, what does that add to your family outlook, to the business outlook, when you have a professional space to offer someone to come back into and take over the reins, want to build the business, want to continue to grow into the operation? So again, those are, you know, 5 reasons why I think that you maybe should, looking at that professionalism and the work and meeting space, and thinking about the millions of dollars that you're cash flowing, looking at hiring and growth in the future. Separating your work and family life, and just understanding that what we see is even though you can't put a direct ROI on it, or can't necessarily quantify it like you would with growing a crop, an office space will make you more money than it ever costs. So when you think about the brain of your farm operation, you think about your office space.

If you wanna bounce any ideas off of us, let us know, we're available anytime. My email is shay@agviewsolutions.com. Hope you guys enjoyed this conversation. And we will catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.