Full Court Press

Thawing out over here. After the last installment of the newsletter, we got 7 feet of snow and dropped to -50 degrees with the wind blowing 100 miles an hour. Maybe that’s a bit exaggerated, but you get the idea. The snowblower was firing on all cylinders for multiple days, but the show must go on!

From the field:

I have stated multiple times to multiple people that of all the things that concerned me about starting a business completely outside of my comfort zone, business development was not one of them.

Well, it turns out that I'm a liar. Business development is now very much a concern as I plow through (pun intended) the list of farmers I have compiled.

Will it likely work out in the end? I do believe it will, it's just going to require more hustle and creativity than I initially thought.

And doesn't that happen often in life? My oldest daughter just had the swim meet of her life this past weekend after two years of working on her strokes. She thought it was going to be easy, was sure she was going to qualify for state many times, but never came close to the improvement she needed. Until this past weekend. All of a sudden something clicked, and she took 10+ seconds off a lot of her previous best times. She qualified for state in 2 events, including one of which we didn't think she had much of a chance in. On the surface it looked like she was an overnight success, but we know what was going on behind the scenes.

So I'll take some inspiration from her story and continue trudging forward until something clicks, and I become that "overnight success". And part of this involves tweaking the game plan. I'm hitting the road and heading out to make a house call to some of these farmers. I've been getting a lot of disconnected land lines in my attempts to do this over the phone, so I'm going to pivot and get more aggressive.

From the office:

Something that is becoming more and more of my daily routine is something called Upwork. Most everyone I talk to has never heard of this when I mention it, so let me explain it.

Let's say you're doing something that you know is outside of your skillset, or you don't want to spend the time on it. How about a logo design, as an example. You can hop on Upwork, post a job/project that outlines what you're looking for, and then people like myself will find your job listing and apply for it. You then pick the best candidate, communicate through the platform, agree upon a fair price for services, and then the work commences.

Why am I telling you all this? What does it have to do with agriculture? Well, sometimes it has nothing to do with agriculture. But every now and again, I find a gem. And this past week, I had the opportunity to build out a spreadsheet for a large farming operation in the Southwest US that predicted yields for the next 10 years. The pay was terrible, but I wasn't really in it for the pay - I was in it for another bit of agriculture experience.

What I'm reading:

The One Thing by Gary Keller. The irony isn't lost on me with this one.

If it appears to you that I'm doing a bunch of different things, you're not wrong.

But the premise of this book is to focus your activities into one thing daily that can move you forward the most.

In my case, it's business development in both businesses. It's spending time with each of my kids as a dad. Same thing as a husband.

The one thing will likely evolve over time, but it's a good reminder to prevent oneself from getting caught up in all the details that don't really move the needle.

Thanks for hanging in - until next week!