Transition planning and farm collaborations: what you need to know and how we can help

Narrator: Thank you very much for joining us on today's discussion about farm collaboration and farm transition. If you take nothing else away from today's podcast, just know that you can always reach out to us if you have any questions, whether, whether you're going through a transition within the family, looking at a collaboration between farms, Ag View Solutions is here to help you, and we would love to talk with you on your story and learn how we could be a good fit for your operation. Give us a call, email us at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com, or call Chris 319-533-5703. Enjoy the podcast.

Shay

Foulk: Welcome back everyone to the Ag View Pitch. You're joined today with Shay Foulk and Chris Barron. Uh, we're doing this podcast kind of from across the country, aren't we, Chris?

Chris

Barron: That's right. I'm, I'm where it's warm and you're where it's cold. I like it that way.

Shay

Foulk: You and Alyssa are down there in Texas headed, headed to TPAP and have an exciting few days there, it sounds like.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, we just, just got down here and, you know, TPAP is, is one of those things where, you know, it's an opportunity for producers to come down and learn from some of the leading industry experts in areas from financial information to just business management structure and all kinds of different topics that makes your business better. And so we're always happy to come down here and learn ourselves. There's a ton of, ton of things that we can always all be learning on.

Shay

Foulk: And you're going to be presenting on collaboration, so we saw, you know, an opportunity here to have a discussion on collaboration and transition. And there's a few different reasons for this and why we wanted to talk with people about this today is just to give them an idea of what it looks like when you call Ag View Solutions if you have questions on— initially, we're working with a lot of people on this topic right now and really getting more and more questions every day. And partly because it's the way of the future with operations, with consolidation and growth., but also as part of that sustainability. You know, like in agriculture too, it's more high risk than ever. It's not the same as even 15 years ago. And so people are today facing lots of unique challenges when it comes to considering these collaborations or even as they go to, you know, transition the farm.

And some of the phone calls that we've been receiving, you know, it's looking at how can we better be prepared for this transition or collaboration to make sure that there's a plan in place. Before it actually starts to happen, you know, instead of getting halfway into a halfway done job and then realizing, hey, this isn't working. And that, that's kind of where Ag View Solution comes in. So, you know, whether people out there listening to this and they have a crunch timeline or they're looking at making a long-term plan, you know, we're really here to help for them.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, and that's, you know, to echo what you're saying, Shay, I mean, we see a lot of a lot of reasons why farm operations are collaborating, whether they know it or not. I mean, whether it's the family transition or, you know, a neighbor's retiring and there's an opportunity they're looking at, or, you know, employee, you know, opportunities. If somebody that's been with the operation for a long period of time and wants to work into the operation, and we even see some supplier and, you know, relationships where there's a collaborative opportunities and with other investors and things.

And, you know, and then probably the one that's going to look like it's starting to create the most opportunity for people is when you're out in the field and you're running your piece of equipment across the field and you look across and you see somebody else running a similar machine and think, you know, oh, if we were doing this together, we could have one larger machine or maybe we, you know, we would get by with one less person on the labor force. If we were to work together and kind of share responsibilities. And so I think there's some obvious economic benefits to it, but it really starts with the people part and really thinking about the opportunities that it presents.

Shay

Foulk: So what we're going to be talking about here today is collaboration between farming operations and then transition within family or even just between generations, however that looks. So can you talk a little bit about your experience in the area, not only with the transition and collaboration of working with operations, but kind of how you've been involved with that and where your perspective comes in.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, well, we started our farm collaboration, and a lot of our clients are already aware of this, but, you know, we started our farm collaboration back in about— the concept came out in about 2007. I ran the idea, you know, even before that, a few years before that, even to my dad, and my dad thought I was crazy. He's like, why do you want to work with anybody else? We're independent, we do our own thing.

And I think years ago when the economy of scale wasn't as big a deal as it maybe is becoming now and just the margins were more manageable and diversification of farm operations allowed for people to be a little bit more independent, maybe for a period of time in agriculture, but you know it's getting to the point now where there's a lot more, a lot more tight margins across the board in every sector and every commodity that we've, that we've worked with and So if you can figure out ways to partner, I had mentioned that to my dad, like I said, years ago. He said I was crazy. And I said, well, why do you think I'm crazy? And he said, well, every time people try to work together, it just doesn't work. They don't get along after a period of time and it's just too messy.

And you go to get out and everybody's mad when they separate and they could be friends in the beginning and enemies in the end. And so one thing I did at that point in time after him telling me all this, I did a little research and I found a few operators that had tried to collaborate in prior years, that it didn't work. And I asked them a lot of questions on, you know, what worked, what didn't, and everything. And there was one common theme that came out of that to me that was really apparent, and that was that all of them got into this for the economic benefits. And the other portion of that, though, that I didn't hear from anybody was they got in it to help someone else, or they got in it so that they could, you know, form a team, you know, and an alliance and really be there for the other person.

And I always tell people, if you're thinking about collaboration and you're not gonna get in this to help somebody else out, stay out then, because, you know, if you get into a collaborative effort and your primary goal is to help your partners, be better, do better, and be more profitable, then what do you think your partners are going to do for you? They're going to do the same thing. So that was really the first thing that was an enlightenment to me was, you know, what, what's missing? You know, why is this not working? Well, what's missing is the people part. They didn't, they didn't go into it for the right reasons. They went into it for the economics. Well, the economics are a no-brainer.

You know, if you, if you look at 3 farm operations that are all too heavily encompassed with machinery and equipment and they all get together and form one line of equipment, well, it's a no-brainer that the economics are significantly better. But if everybody wants to beat each other up, 2, 3 years down the road, you didn't gain anything. And so, you know, so what we did in the very beginning when we formed our collaborative effort back in 2008, 2009, the first thing we started was with the people. And we established what our mission was, what our vision was. And that was really the primary thing that came out of that was quality of life. We wanted to figure out how we could all work together and maybe have a little more time with family, a little more time to do a better job in our operation, a little more time to work on the business instead of just in the business.

Because it seems like anymore everybody's so busy, you don't have time to go and educate yourself on things. It's hard to integrate new technologies and all those kind of things. And so it was really important to recognize that, you know, all of a sudden we could become much more professional. And the other thing that I noticed that was a big thing on the people side of things was, for example, in my own story, my brother-in-law and I a lot of times were at odds. You know, his opinion on, you know, His spending and my opinion on spending was different. My opinion on marketing and his opinion on marketing were opposite ends of the spectrum. We just didn't ever agree on anything and it was becoming problematic. But when we started to partner with a neighboring producer, it required us to not be belligerent to each other. All of a sudden we had to be more professional.

We couldn't just communicate and walk out of the room or cuss at each other or whatever. You know, if all of a sudden you bring in an outside perspective, even if it's not a professional perspective but just another person, it changes the culture and the dynamics of that relationship in a way that just organically will become more professional. That's not to say that as that develops that it doesn't need guidance and structure. It does. It certainly does. But just that enough— itself of bringing in a new dynamic changes that. And especially on the family side of things when we see family transitions, that's why it's so tough, you know, in a family collaboration to try to grow from one generation to the next, especially when cousins and siblings and relatives start co-mingling equipment or getting together and operating as one unit.

So often that breaks up is because they haven't built the structure that's necessary to make it work. And I think that's the one thing that we've learned along the way, both in doing it ourselves for over 10 years now and then also working with other operators as to how to put that together and what elements you need. Because that's really the key to success is getting through that first 3 or 4 years and getting to year 10, 12, 15 and really growing the critical mass of the operation so that you can be competitive as a single unit.

Shay

Foulk: That's a great background on the collaboration piece there. And while all that was going on, there was a lot of transition going on within the farm operation. I was wondering if you could take a couple minutes to outline too for those listening, you know, how you work through some of that transition process and then how's how has that looked with, you know, the clients that we've worked with here and what we've learned in the transition process that we're utilizing with operations today and moving forward?

Chris

Barron: Well, a big part of that, uh, that we've learned and with our family operation and as, as we utilize the same exact business model with our clients is, is the fact that, you know, we had commingled ownership of machinery a little bit within our family but more so within our first collaborative partner. And again, like I said, we see more of that with clients that come in where dad owns a piece of machinery and son one owns something and, you know, cousin owns something and maybe the uncle owns something and keeping track of who has what, where, when, why, and how is about impossible for— especially for an extended period of time. You can kind of do that when it's simple in the beginning, but as time goes on, it gets more and more complicated when it's time to trade equipment and do things without any kind of structure. And so that's what we started figuring out.

That was number one thing is, hey, you know, we need some structure here. And so what we did was we formed— the first thing we actually formed was a machinery company, an Equipment LLC, which was designed to provide the machinery and equipment on a per-pass basis to all of our farming participants. And at that time in our operation, there was about 4 other entities at the time. It was myself, my family's operation, my brother-in-law, my nephew, and an employee that we had, and then the new, the new producer that was going to collaborate with us. So we had at that time when we first started up about 5 or 6 different farming entities, but that machinery and equipment company then supplied all of the equipment back to each of us on a per-pass basis, and then the labor would be paid back based on a time, you know, participation in that LLC.

And so everybody just pays a per-acre fee, and the more you participate, the more, you know, that's taken off of your bill. The less you participate, the less it's taken off, and then it's not as big a deal if somebody doesn't participate as much. That's one of the things we see as a challenge a lot of times when people come to us and they say, well, Bob doesn't work nearly as much as Jim does, and, you know, and even the wives or the spouses start getting frustrated because, you know, it looks like one's doing more than the other and it's just not an equal sharing of how things are set up. And so that's why we set structure up— you know, with that company. We also set up— we'll typically set up a trucking business. Most of the operations we work with have transportation or logistics company that will manage, and that's usually the trucking business.

We kind of handle that the same way as the equipment business. And then the next layer up from there, eventually we get to a management company that can do all the throughput and the purchasing for each of the entities. A lot of times we don't have to go to that management company for quite some time because as producers, and you know as well as I do, Shay, we're all a little independent, right? And so we want to make sure that, you know, we can each have our own, you know, profit centers but utilize the services that are provided by the companies, you know, either the equipment or the trucking or the purchasing side of things and/or the marketing side of things. Is really a benefit when all of a sudden you have, you know, 3 times the size and scope of the operation. That critical mass becomes a real important piece of the puzzle.

So, you know, those are some of the things that we try to structure when we work with clients is to help them, you know, get that business structure established. But then also it comes down— that trickles down then to roles and responsibilities and getting to a some sort of an organizational structure of who's doing what. And by that, what we try to do is put together an organizational chart where we can identify roles and responsibilities and then ultimately decision rights so that, you know, when it comes down— for example, I'll give you a specific example on that. Let's say you have a machinery company and, you know, and Dale and Dave are the two out of the organization that are responsible for the machinery. Well, it might be a thing where, you know, Dale's in charge of capital decisions and Dave's in charge of the, you know, the prioritization of the machinery and equipment.

In other words, when there's more than one person making decisions, the priorities might be different. And so, for example, on machinery, at our operation, what we do is, you know, is we have input from everybody on what the priorities are, what needs to be replaced, you know, and then we have a committee that says, okay, we have X amount of capital because there's always, you know, in every farm operation we've ever worked with and including ours, there's always more stuff you need than what you have money for. So you have to prioritize what things need to be replaced and do that out about 3 years so you can plan What's next to replace if you're going to do the combine now, but the planter needs replaced too? Well, then when do you do the planter, and when do you do that tractor, and when do you do that tillage tool, or whatever it is? And map that stuff out based on prioritization.

And then the capital requirements dictate how rapidly you can do that or cannot do that. So if the revenue is not there, if the capital isn't there, then it gets pushed off a year. You know, but the prioritization is really a key piece of that puzzle. So, I don't know if that kind of answers your question, Shea, but that's kind of how we map out, you know, both in our operation and with a lot of the clients we work with, just to kind of give you a 30,000-foot view of a bit of the structure. Anyway, a lot more to it than that, but that kind of gives you a 30,000-foot view.

Shay

Foulk: Yes, I think that's a good overview. And one thing that I want to— point out to the listeners is that we're not working with only a specific type of operation. We work with operations that are a couple of hundred acres that maybe have one or two partners involved, all the way up to operations with tens of thousands of acres with tens of entities and millions of dollars worth of assets and decisions to be made. So if there's listeners out there that are thinking, well, maybe I don't fit into this category, you know, I would just encourage them to understand that, you know, we do work with operations of all shapes and sizes there.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, there's— operations are kind of like people. There's no one the same as another at all. And, you know, and to that point, I would say when you look at the operations, not only are there size and shape differences, but there are personality differences. There are— number of people involved makes a difference. And then another thing that I always look at is, you know, what's the average age of your— either your family unit business and/or the collaborative opportunity that you're looking at. You know, if you've got some younger people with a lot of energy and and grow-oriented, and you've got some more seasoned, older, you know, maybe even close to retirement or at retirement even, that can be more of the mentor side of things.

When you combine the youth and enthusiasm with wisdom and experience, all of a sudden some really dynamic and effective decision-making occurs because what we see a lot of times is the youth will have a tendency to hit the throttle a little too hard and maybe push the envelope just a little bit too hard, while, you know, on the opposite end of the spectrum, you know, maybe the senior generation's got the throttle pulled all the way back and starting to push the clutch in. And, you know, and neither are probably best for themselves, for the family, for everything here. And so if we can combine those two and build the appropriate structure, The end result for that age diversity is a humongous, just absolutely amazing result when you can combine that wisdom with the youth and enthusiasm.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, and you're leading right into where I wanted to go with this conversation and kind of how we wanted to outline this podcast is You know, when we get these common questions or we're talking with producers, almost as an onboarding procedure, what we'll do is we'll have a 30 to 90 minute call typically to learn about their operation, learn about their situation. And so, you know, whether that's people, you know, reading an article that you published or hearing our podcast here on the Ag View Pitch or just, you know, being referred to us or hearing us at some of the speaking events that we have attended, typically we'll get an email email at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com, or they will text or call you personally.

And one of the first things that we, that we add, and what I want to jump into with you here, Chris, is, you know, what might a phone call look like and what can people be expecting? And as you laid out there, you know, one of the first things that we ask is looking at them, uh, you know, at their operation specifically and having them talk to us about their situation, you know, the names the age of people and who is involved, kind of their goals and vision, and then having them paint a perfect picture of what they want to see accomplished and then what their timeline, you know, might be with that. So can you talk to that a little bit more?

Chris

Barron: Yeah, for sure. You know, that, that's one of the key things, and I'm glad you bring that up or ask about that because the things we've learned over the years helping other operations is Before you can decide where you want to go, you need to know to a degree where you've come from. And, you know, so it's— what we try to do is first have what we call a discovery phase where we basically map out and draw physically, actually draw pictures of the dynamic that exists. And so there may already be 3 or 4 companies within their family business and/or maybe an already preexisting collaboration and/or alliance, and maybe it's just a sole operator, and that's fine too. But what we want to do is figure out where has that operation been, you know, and how did it get to where it is now. So what were the reasons those decisions were made to get to where they are?

And then once we see, okay, this is where you're at, we literally, again, as I was saying, we draw a picture of, what exists, where the ownership is at, and just make sure that everybody has a clear understanding of the current baseline that exists. Once we do that, then we can start to ask the question, okay, if you could draw a picture— the picture of a perfect world for where you want to go, what would that look like? And we help begin to design and draw a picture of what that is, whether it's family transition or a large collaborative effort or it's, you know, transitioning and working together with a neighbor that's retiring and/or maybe you're the neighbor that's retiring and you're looking for a younger producer that you could transition the business over to. And that's what we do is we draw that picture out and say, okay, what's this world look like?

Then what happens is our job along with the producers are to figure out, okay, now what do we need or equipment to build the bridge to get from where we're at now to where we want to go. And a lot of those components are just structuring some things. We have an iterative process for that, and by iterative process, I mean that we have a list. We have several forms that we use to go through and identify what needs to occur. And I'm just— you know, I'm not going to go through the whole list, but I'll throw out a couple of specifics there, you know, what are the lending relationships, or, you know, if there's a couple of people that are thinking about collaborating, do they have the same lender, what are their purchasing and buying differences.

Another thing that, you know, I had a— last year and again this year, we've had some operators call us that want to collaborate with each other and we get to talking and one operation's all red equipment and the other one's all green equipment, and that's fine, but that's a topic of conversation then. Of what are we going to, you know, what does that look like when we merge these operations, you know. And so there's a lot of things to think about. Another big one is insurance.

You know, whenever you're collaborating or working with somebody and let's say you have 2 or 3 entities working together, helping each other or whatever, if there are 3 different insurance companies, you're asking for trouble.— when, it's not a matter of if there's a loss, but when there is a loss of some sort, whether it's damaged equipment or, you know, human, you know, human injury or a liability issue on the road or something, and you have more than one insurance company, and a lot of times not only is that an issue, but, you know, maybe there's gaps in coverage in one or more of the of the entities, and then all of a sudden you got to figure out, well, how do we fix this mess?

And so instead of getting into some of these messes, and that is an example of one specific out of a bunch that we, that we bring to the table to make sure we correct before it's a problem, you know, we, we design what that needs to look like and we help the growers think through all of those potential pitfalls before you actually have the pitfall. We made a lot of mistakes. You know, you asked about our operation. I mean, we made a ton of mistakes, you know, 10 years ago on different things that if I had to do over again, or I wish I had somebody that could have taught us a bunch of things that, you know, would have saved us a ton of money, um, just on making some mistakes that, you know, we had to learn the hard way. And, you know, as humans, sometimes that's how we learn. But on the other hand, those lessons can be very, very expensive.

And so that's really where I think our value comes in, is being able to not just tell you and help you on some of the things that you should do or need to do, but it's figuring out, you know, if you don't do this one or two things wrong, you get these one or two things right, all of a sudden, you know, that's a huge impact on the bottom line in a positive way.

Shay

Foulk: So Right. And a lot of those things we really dive into, you know, we outline that on the phone call and then those are things that we really dive into at the initial meeting there. And once we have people, you know, paint that picture and get a feel for what their timeline is on the phone call, might ask a few specific questions, look at, you know, financials, family logistics, what does their labor pool look like, and other things a little bit more specific to the operation. Just so we can paint a picture. And then, you know, once we've kind of had this phone call, what we do with Ag View Solutions then is we'll send a follow-up proposal and any documents related to the phone call.

So a lot of times we'll send out, hey, this is what our discovery process looks like, these are some things that you need to be considering, and if you decide to move forward with us, here's some information that we want you to have at the first meeting. And, you know, give the people that are reaching out to us a little bit of time to contemplate, you know, how we can best help their farms or if we're the best fit. Maybe there's some other things that they need to get in order before that, but do the follow-up with the proposal. You know, Alyssa will send the proposal out and I'll send out some of the following documents. And then really from there, it's just, you know, organizing. Okay, when can we make this first meeting work? And, and that's what I wanted to jump into next.

So you know, with our services, Chris, I was hoping you could outline to those listening what our services look like, what kind of time commitment there is there, and what they can expect from us.

Chris

Barron: That's a really big question, but I'll tackle it, and if I miss something, you'll have to let me know. But, you know, really what we try to do is to provide a fresh look at their operation in terms of, you know, taking the emotion out of it. In other words, there's a lot of emotion in these operations, and so when we start working with them, as you said, you know, we get— we map all this stuff out, and then we basically offer a year-by-year contractual agreement. So, you know, it's the first year that we are working with a grower, let's say that Shay, you and Alyssa send out an email and tell the producer that, okay, we've had our meeting, we've had our conversation, we've basically drawn a picture sort of where you've been and where you're currently at.

There's a little more to that once we get together, but we have a basic understanding of the operation and understand the needs of the operation. We send out some homework that basically the operation needs to do before, before we show up to meet. And then in that 1-year contractual agreement, let's say that we start working together on the, say, the 10th of March and it's 2020, then what we do is we have 2 full-day meetings. And the definition of a full-day meeting for us is about 7 or 8 hours of just working on the process and getting growers setup so that they can work through the transition of forming this collaboration. And it's a process that depends on the complexity of the operation. Some of these, with the operations that have a lot of people and a lot of size, it takes maybe a year or two to work through that.

With a smaller operation or two producers that are going to network, you know, if they work hard at it, we might be able to get everything set up in a year. So we do a 1-year by year contract. Again, those 2 meetings, one meeting is at the producer's location, the second meeting is at our location. And the reason we go to our location is I want to show our clients that we're working with inside scoop of what we did right and wrong and the financials connected to that and the impact both on the positive and negative side. So that's Obviously, it's a pretty confidential discussion, but it's a view inside a real situation, so it's not theory. It's not, you know, it's not an educational thing as much as it is practical. This is a practical situation, and then apply those practical issues to their operation where there's merit and where it fits.

And so those are— You know, some of the things that we do, you know, Shay, you and Alissa follow up with an email. Alissa does a proposal on the price structure, and a lot of that depends on the dynamics of the operation and what we have to do. And we also make ourselves available, I always say, 24/7 with the exception of Sunday mornings. And then also that means that if we're with a client or we're in the middle of something, obviously the best way is to text or email us and we get back to you usually within 24 hours and usually within a couple of hours. So, and help along the way. So that help along the way means phone calls, emails, conference calls as things are being developed as needed. And so we just encourage our clients to contact us. It's really the job of the client to be working on their process and our job is to be there to help them along the way.

You know, we're not a CPA, we're not an attorney. We facilitate the process. But we do, however, have a lot of conversations with CPAs, a lot of conversations with attorneys, a lot of conversations with lenders, a lot of conversations with insurance companies, a lot of conversations with, with producers that are in the middle of this and trying to make some decisions on the exact structure and what needs to be in operating agreements and what doesn't need to be in there. So those are all things that we kind of help to help the producers formulate a more disciplined and a more practical approach rather than just winging it. You know, you can get into these collaborations and there's an economic benefit almost instantaneously. The problem is, is can you sustain it? Can you continue working together 2, 3 years down the road as things get more complicated?

And that's really what we're here for is we want to see these operations get together and do well. I mean, there's a reason why, you know, there's 3 large seed companies. There's a reason why there's 3 manufacturers that are, you know, for example, sell pickups. You got Ford, Dodge, and Chevy, and they're all really good, but there isn't, you know, 15 different companies out there anymore. And I'm not saying we're going to get down to 3 farms eventually, but I am saying that, you know, if you look at how agriculture was 10 years ago and how it is now and what it might look like in 10 years, I think all of our independence as producers is going to depend on our interdependence. In other words, we're going to have to all work together really well and really hard to make sure that we all can kind of stay in business here. And I think we're going to have to lean on each other.

We're going to have to be there for each other and not just financially either. I think there's an emotional component. I think the people part is massive. And that's where another thing we do, you know, that I think, you know, I started out with, you know, how we do it, and I'm going— I'm rambling on with your question, but I want to point out two more things as to what we bring to the table. And that's making sure that the team health isn't just something that you look at and you set it up and you set up an operating agreement, you put it on the shelf and it gets dusty and nobody remembers what the roles and responsibilities were.

You know, we want to make sure that there's trust in the operation so that when there's conflict, everybody can communicate and manage that so that that way eventually, you know, once we figure out what the conflict is, you know, everybody can be committed to each other and then there can be accountability and then you can get your results. And so, you know, that's really what we want to do is just make sure that that if we're working with a client, that this process is successful. That's our job, is to make sure that it is. Does that answer your question pretty good?

Shay

Foulk: It does, yes. And, you know, I think you had a really— a few really good points in there. One, you know, that we are working as part of a team here, so we want to be part of your strategic resource team. If there's a listener that haven't heard that podcast, I'd encourage them to go back and listen into how we can fit in as part of that strategic resource team. And then also just, you know, the importance of having a third party involved with this goes beyond even all the benefits that we've outlined so far with the experience that, you know, you've had with collaboration and transition planning and being involved in these type of operations.

But just to have a third party there to document it, to hold you accountable to the actions that you say you're going to take or that you plan on taking, And then to continue to follow up because you can implement this, you know, maybe in a year or 18 months or maybe it's 3 to 7 years. But as you stress there, it's important to have that continuity and, you know, to treat this as a living, breathing thing because it, you know, it takes time. And with that being said, you know, we want people to graduate. You know, that's a term that you use all the time. We want people to graduate. We want you to, You know, we don't— we're not in this to have you be a client forever. There's lots of other services that we offer with profit management and safety and communication within organizations.

But when it comes to this collaboration and transition, we are just here to help operations in any way that we can. And that's where that 24-hour access, 365 days a year comes in for us to be an integral part of your operation to help with that decision-making. I think is extremely important.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, and you said a key word there too is third party. You know, it doesn't have to be us, but one thing I'll tell you is it has to be somebody from outside of your operation to help you transition into a different business model. And partly because of the emotion that's involved. I mean, I don't even do that in my own operation. I hire an outside third party to, to help us because you're too close when you're in your— when you're part of your operation. You might be the CEO and the CFO of your operation, or maybe there you have both, or maybe you're a sole proprietor, whatever it is, you know, and you have communication with the family internally. There's emotional connection, and if decisions have to be made, they're emotional, and sometimes we don't go into those danger zones when we communicate.

We don't talk out things that we need to talk about because we're afraid to bring them up or we just avoid them. And if you have a third-party facilitator in there, they don't care. You know, those things are going to be brought up and they're going to be brought up professionally and they're not— there's not going to be screaming and yelling and all that kind of craziness. It's going to be professional and that's really why the third-party component is so important and why a lot of farm operations fail is because they don't make that leap from this being a farm to this being a business that happens to be a farm. It has to be a business first and then it can be a farm if it wants to be a farm in the future, you know. And so that's really a key thing too that I think a lot of times gets missed is, you know, what do you want the legacy to be of your operation, of your business?

And really look in the mirror and ask yourself that. And again, you know, I don't care if you don't think you're collaborating. You are collaborating in one form or another. You're either collaborating with a neighbor. You're collaborating with family. You're collaborating with suppliers, with your customers, with lenders, with insurance, you know. So it's really all about, you know, that team health and figuring out who's on that team and just having good communication. So I don't know, I'm kind of rambling on that, but the people part of it, I just can't say enough about. And you know, as well as I do, Shae, I mean, we spend a lot of time on that part of it, but the main reason is that's the biggest potential for failure is if you don't get the people part right, because the math just works on the machinery side of things.

Shay

Foulk: Absolutely. Um, you know, I think we probably painted a pretty clear picture of, you know, what it looks like here when, when people reach out to us and we get, we get people reaching out to us from Twitter, Facebook, the podcast, speaking events, references, you know, from, from all over the place. And we love to have the conversations with people and just talk about how we can help them. It doesn't cost anything to call us. You know, if you're thinking about doing this, if you think, you know, I have these transition questions or I'm looking at this collaboration, I would just encourage anyone that listens to this, give us a call, see how we can help you, and, you know, we'll go from there. So I guess, Chris, you know, is there anything else that you wanted to highlight kind of on this collaboration and transition podcast here before we wrap up?

Chris

Barron: Not really, other than, you know, just make sure you don't put your head in the sand and be thinking of the future. And if this is something that fits your operation and where you think you want to go, it's definitely something worth having, at least having a conversation about. And beyond that, you know, it's just having the conversation. So I really don't have anything else. I think we covered the majority of what we needed to. I mean, there's a lot of specifics we could get into on machinery and equipment analysis and all that stuff. That's all part of what we do in the process. So I'm not sure that's as important as much as just, you know, learning the process, understanding it, and seeing if it's a fit for your operation.

Shay

Foulk: No, that's great. So also, you know, if you'd like requests for references, we have 50 or 60 operations that, you know, we've done this working on the collaborations and transitions. Probably more than that at this point. You know, if you have any questions at all, shoot us an email, cbarron@agviewsolutions.com, or you can call Chris at 319-533-5703. If he doesn't answer, you know, probably busy in a meeting or talking with other people, just shoot us an email. I also would encourage you to check out any other podcasts on the Ag View Pitch. I mentioned the Strategic Resource Team. There's some recent ARC PLC lending decisions and other tools out there. And then also we do have some strategic planning tools that's been getting a lot of traction from an article that Chris wrote. If you're interested in these strategic planning tools, please email us. We'll send them out.

Let us know how we can help your operation. But Chris, thanks for taking the time to, you know, have this discussion today, and we'll plan on talking to you a little later here.

Chris

Barron: You bet. Good talking to you, Shea. Enjoy the cold. We're going to enjoy some warmth down here and try to learn some stuff at TPAP and enjoy ourselves, and we'll see you soon.

Shay

Foulk: Sounds real good. Thanks everyone for listening. We will catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.

Narrator: Podcast listeners, we just wanted to remind you of the Farm Futures Summit that's coming up here on January 23rd. 23rd and 24th in Iowa City. That's at the Coralville Marriott Hotel and Conference Center. They got a great lineup of speakers, information, and breakouts that they're going to be having there. Chris is going to be speaking on a few different topics. Uh, if you have any interest, please reach out to us. Uh, we have a promotional code for our clients and those who listen to the podcast here. Uh, we can try and get you a little bit of a discount headed into the Farm Future Summit, but we truly believe that this is, uh, one of the better industry summits that's put on out there. Lots of great information. Please look into checking it out. You know, we don't get a commission or anything off of this.

We, we just truly believe in the information that's being shared here at this conference. So give us a shout, cbarron@agviewsolutions.com, and thanks again for listening. We will catch you next time on the Egg View Pitch.