Farm Family Succession Planning: Why Only 9% Make It to Third Generation

Scott Pilchard [00:00:00] And so for a, a territory that had produced six figures income the year before, I think I made $18,000 that year. Ooh. And paid all my own expenses. And I realized then that no matter what my products were, what my prices were, or how charming and clever of a guy I was, I didn't have that long-term relationship that he had, and it was apparent very quickly. I'm Steven Fairbanks, a writer and teacher from St. Louis, Missouri, and you're listening to the Vance Crowe podcast. Welcome

Vance Crowe [00:00:34] Back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today we sit down with my good friend Scott Pilchard. Scott is a really interesting person that's built his entire career on his ability to make relationships. These relationships come because he volunteers, he shows up, and he's just one of those guys that you want to be around. In fact, after the interview, Scott and I went out for a light late lunch, and it went so long that I was almost late picking up my daughters. We're gonna get to that interview in just a moment, but I have three things I wanna chat with you about before we do. The first one is one of my favorite listeners, a guy named Nicholas, kind of chatted me the other day and he said, Hey, you never give people away to communicate and connect with you about what they heard on the podcast. Do you want 'em to talk on the YouTube comments? Do you want 'em to say something on Facebook? And both of those things are fine if that's where you're at. But actually, my preferred social media, a way you can get ahold of me at almost any time is on X, otherwise known as Twitter. So if you're somebody that wants to tell me something that I could improve, you have suggestions about somebody that I should interview, or you just wanna talk with me about what you heard, know that it really means a lot to me when people reach out, even when you have something critical to say. Next. I just recently got back from the Colorado Farm Bureau's annual meeting. They invited me to give a talk called The Art of Picking Up Nails, which is a talk that I've recently written that describes how is it that you get people to open up? How is it that you get them to understand that you are really interested in what's going on in their mind, in their past, and you hope that they will share it with you?

Vance Crowe [00:02:10] A lot of what I talk about during this particular keynote is things that I've learned while doing Legacy Interviews, not the stories that people tell, but really what have I learned about how to interact with people that I just met in order to get them to open up? This is a talk that can fit any kind of audience from accountants to farmers, and it really will help individuals in the audience walk out of the room and know how to show their loved ones that they wanna have a deeper relationship. If you're interested in having me come to give a talk at your next meeting, go to Vance Crowe dot com. That's my speaking page, and you can find some of the talks that I give and a way to reach out to me to see if it'll work for your schedule. Finally, Christmas is almost here, and if you're interested in having me sit down with your loved ones to record their life stories so that future generations know their family history, go to Legacy Interviews dot com to find out more. When you give a legacy interview as a gift, we will send you a leather folio that has pages describing what the gift is all about. This is a great thing for somebody to open up around the holidays, and if you wanna make sure that we can get it to you in time, just make sure you've ordered your legacy interview by December 18th. Alright, without further ado, let's head to the interview with my friend Scott Pilchard. Scott Pilchard, welcome to the podcast. Thank

Scott Pilchard [00:03:36] You very much, Vance. Glad to be here.

Vance Crowe [00:03:38] Why in the world do people farm in Arizona?

Scott Pilchard [00:03:42] It's a pretty good question. We got a, a very unique set of circumstances in Arizona from a climate standpoint, and while there's certainly been lots of discussion about the use of water in Arizona and how do we farm there and why do we farm there, it's, it's that unique set of circumstances from the standpoint of climate that really allows us to do things agriculturally that can't be done anywhere else. As an example, 90% of the leafy greens that are consumed in North America from November to March are produced in Arizona. And so pretty unique set of circumstances there. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:04:28] It's wild. Like I remember when I, I went on a trip to Arizona, like an ag trip, and we stopped up to the water area and before we even get off the bus, the the, they're like, that water is ours. We was incorporated into our state charter before Colorado was a state and doing any, you know, like it was like the very first thing. And that water is key to being able to harness the direct sunlight that, that, you know, hammers on Arizona in the middle of the winter where it's cold here. Right.

Scott Pilchard [00:04:56] And

Vance Crowe [00:04:56] Then to turn that into salad.

Scott Pilchard [00:04:58] Yep, yep. With a lot of discussion and inspection of the use of Colorado River Water recently, there's been many studies done in the Yuma area where, you know, in different parts of the world, they talk about acre feet for the use of water in Yuma, they bring it down to the gallon, they know by the gallon per acre how much they're using. They're very efficient users of water and, and the application and producing those leafy greens and vegetables.

Vance Crowe [00:05:31] It's a, it's such such a weird thing. You know, you watch a movie like three 10 to Yuma and you think this is like the dusty dry, you know, and then you're driving along and you see just field after field after field of lettuce and the the crazy, because that was the first time I'd ever seen like real intense field labor along with farming. 'cause I grew up in the Midwest, so

Scott Pilchard [00:05:52] Right.

Vance Crowe [00:05:53] You're seeing combines and planters and the only real field labor were 15-year-old kids cutting weeds out and that doesn't even happen anymore. Sure. But you go there and people are harvesting lettuce and you know, they're bent over, they've got a sharp knife, they cut it out, they're like chucking it into a bag and it's going. And that's when you realize like human beings are locusts because there is so much food being processed and you know that lettuce is gonna be eaten in the next five days and it's just all day long. You know, hundreds and hundreds and hun maybe thousands of people going through and cutting up vegetables that we're going to eat all the way throughout the rest of the country.

Scott Pilchard [00:06:30] Yeah. And one of the promotional pieces that the Yuma farmers put out that this statistic just blew me away, a 40 acre field of lettuce will produce 6 billion servings of, of product.

Vance Crowe [00:06:47] Well, and that just goes to show you why when people are like, why are we use all this land for corn? And it's because like, you don't need that many acres of lettuce because Right, right. How many servings of of salad do you need?

Scott Pilchard [00:06:57] Yeah. You brought, you brought up the, the labor situation. And one of the things that I found most interesting, I, I was involved in, I was still am involved with the leadership project called Project Central. It's the Center for Rural Leadership in Arizona. And we took a trip to Yuma and we started at four 30 in the morning watching farm workers come across the border legal farm workers who every day make the trip from their home in Mexico across the border, get on a bus, go to the field, do their work from sunup to sundown, reverse the process back to their home, often not arriving to their home by until nine or 10 o'clock. And then at three or four in the morning they start over again. And when you watch them work in the fields, anybody who thinks that's unskilled labor is, they're, they're wrong about that. Oh

Vance Crowe [00:07:54] Yeah. I

Scott Pilchard [00:07:55] Mean, it's an amazing skill.

Vance Crowe [00:07:56] We did a similar thing down, down on the Yuma

Scott Pilchard [00:07:59] Border,

Vance Crowe [00:07:59] And you're just like, you simply cannot imagine before seeing it, how many people are coming through those gates to come do all this work over here. And it's work that it would take you, you know, six months to get in good enough shape to be able to do it, to be able to Ben over be bent over all day and like, I don't even know at 40 if I could. Right. Like, it was like intense work

Scott Pilchard [00:08:24] Harder than you could imagine,

Vance Crowe [00:08:26] I'm sure. Yeah, I think so.

Scott Pilchard [00:08:27] Not by experience. I mean, I weeded some cotton fields when I was in high school in California growing up, but nothing like that.

Vance Crowe [00:08:34] Is that where you grew up? California?

Scott Pilchard [00:08:35] Yep. In the Central Valley of California near Fresno.

Vance Crowe [00:08:39] And what were you doing? Weed and cotton fields.

Scott Pilchard [00:08:42] My best friend's dad was a cotton grower and he grew almonds and citrus and all different kinds of, of agricultural products. But you know, my first job was working for him in the summers and going through some things the other day. I found my first W2 form for the $73 that I earned that summer working on McFarland Ranch. What

Vance Crowe [00:09:05] Were you making per hours,

Scott Pilchard [00:09:06] Do you think? Oh, I don't know, two 50 maybe. Something like that. Isn't

Vance Crowe [00:09:09] It wild to to think back, like how different like pay has become? I mean, I remember when I had a job that I made $5 an hour and that was like the best money of anyone that I knew

Scott Pilchard [00:09:24] That was

Vance Crowe [00:09:24] Making money. And like you think about that, like you couldn't pay somebody $5 an hour to do anything right now. Yeah.

Scott Pilchard [00:09:30] It was the early seventies and my best friend James, whose dad owned the ranch, he's since passed on and James operates the ranch now. But we, we laughed at a story where, you know, there's so many circumstances now about the treatment of labor and what you must do. And granted those requirements are very necessary, but we'd be working down a row of cotton a quarter mile long, and we would see his dad drive up and he would get out and he would set something at the end of the row. And when we would get to the end of the row that was lunch, and he would have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a paper bag and a cup of water that, that sat in the sun. And we were happy to have it. But, you know, that was for a couple of 12 or 13-year-old kids. Pretty good stuff and pretty good money and really experiences that couldn't be replicated for me.

Vance Crowe [00:10:27] Yeah. I mean, like out in those fields, I don't know about cotton, but when I was detasseling or walking beans, you get all the way into like a waterway or you get away from where the adults could see you. You had like giant rustling matches, you had mud fights, you had all these things. I don't, I don't know if they still do this today, but like, 'cause kids don't work out in the fields that much anymore.

Scott Pilchard [00:10:46] No, no. We, we also, we harvested onion seed.

Vance Crowe [00:10:51] Oh man. Those are like the smallest seeds out there.

Scott Pilchard [00:10:53] So you'd have plants that were four or five feet tall and they have the big tassels of seed on top and you'd go up with a, a, a grape knife and cut them off and you'd carry a barrel on your back and toss. I, I sound like my grandfather telling this story, but you know, you toss that in the back and then when your barrel is full, you'd hand it to the guys on the truck and they would throw it in. Well, a lot of the Hispanic guys who were, you know, career field workers, they just loved messing with us, teenage kids and you know, they'd hold up a mouse or a rat that they found in the field and scare us and it was amazing.

Vance Crowe [00:11:28] So you grew up working on farms? Were you a farm kid

Scott Pilchard [00:11:33] To say I grew up on a farm would probably be a stretch. It was, we had five acres and we raised livestock. I was in four H and FFA and that was really my first exposure to agriculture. Not only working on working in the fields locally with my friends, but then raising, I raised sheep. We had a couple horses, we had a couple cattle at various times, and that's where I kind of found my love for agriculture.

Vance Crowe [00:12:01] Were your parents full-time farmers then? Or they did other things? No,

Scott Pilchard [00:12:04] No. My dad was a banker. My mom did a variety of things, worked at the school and so yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:12:11] And then you went on to college and joined an ag fraternity?

Scott Pilchard [00:12:15] I did. I went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, joined Alpha Gamma Row and became active in that fraternity. And I, I'm still active today on the board of the Alumni Association. Oh, are you really?

Vance Crowe [00:12:27] Yeah.

Scott Pilchard [00:12:27] What

Vance Crowe [00:12:27] Is the value of being in an ag fraternity?

Scott Pilchard [00:12:33] It's where I really found the, the beauty and the value of relationships from people in a variety of circumstances. You know, I hadn't, you know, you grow up, you have your circumstances and you hang out with friends that are all in basically the same circle of life. And, you know, meeting kids that grew, when I joined a GR and met people that were from ri they were rice growers, they were dairyman. And you know, as a 19, 20-year-old kid, you sort of still finding your way in the world. But learning to operate an organization like your local chapter and, and abide by rules and break rules and what happens when you break the rules. And it was, it was that experience for me that really taught me the ability to network and the value of networking, which to me, I think is my greatest strength as a business person today.

Vance Crowe [00:13:36] Yeah, certainly. Why we know each other.

Scott Pilchard [00:13:38] Exactly. You

Vance Crowe [00:13:39] Had a very interesting concept there. The, like that you, you find out which rules to follow and then what you know, which rules to break and then what happens when you break rules. But that really is a pretty fundamental part of growing up, that it's not something you usually are, it's not, it's, it's in the fine print, right. It's not in the, in the rest of the manual. But you really do need to like get into trouble and figure out like what's real trouble? What, what causes people to get upset with you. Like, it, it's funny, I never really thought of it that way before.

Scott Pilchard [00:14:09] Yeah. That, I think that's a, a fair way of describing it. It's, you kind of find out where the guardrails are and you find out what happens when you get on the other side of the guardrail. And what

Vance Crowe [00:14:19] Did you ever get on the other side of the guard rail?

Scott Pilchard [00:14:21] I don't know from time to time, but nothing too serious. Yeah. What

Vance Crowe [00:14:25] Type of mischief were you, were you liable to get into as a young person?

Scott Pilchard [00:14:31] Well, it would usually involve rock and roll of some sort and a concert. Typically. I have always been a fan of live music. And so I dunno if, if, if you've ever heard of the US Festival, 1983, Steve Wozniak from Apple held a three day rock festival in the foothills of Southern California and 300,000 people attended each day. And, you know, it was a lineup of the Clash played and David Bowie and Van Halen and the scorpions and bands like that, that were all together over this three day period. And we attended one day and we probably got into a little mischief while we were there. Sure.

Vance Crowe [00:15:19] Back in 83, would you have known who Steve Wozniak was? Would you have known what Apple was? I

Scott Pilchard [00:15:25] Knew what Apple was and knew that he was a wealthy guy and could afford to throw a giant rock festival that ultimately lost a lot of money, but,

Vance Crowe [00:15:36] And so then you finished college. What are you imagining you're gonna be when you grow up?

Scott Pilchard [00:15:40] Well, I, when I went to college, I wanted to be a veterinarian again, from my experiences with working with livestock, it was something that I really enjoyed and wanted to make it a career. At the time there were only, I believe, 14 vet schools in America, many more today. And it was a very hard step to get accepted into vet school. So after my first quarter at Cal Poly first couple quarters, my advisor called me in and he said, what would you like to change your major to? And I said, I don't want to change my major. And he said, well, you don't have a 4.0, you're not going to be a veterinarian, you're not gonna get into vet school. Oh,

Vance Crowe [00:16:21] It was that tough. It was

Scott Pilchard [00:16:23] That clear. Right. And so, you know, I had a friend of a friend whose uncle was in the ag chemical business, and he drove a nice car and played golf once a week. And I thought, I wanna be like him. So I changed my major to ag business and that was the direction it took me. But ultimately I never didn't work in agriculture coming out of school. It was 1984 when I got done, and ag was having a tough time at the moment. There weren't a lot of jobs, so I ended up going into just a general sales job in the wholesale gift business. And

Vance Crowe [00:17:02] What is that?

Scott Pilchard [00:17:04] Well, you know, every gift shop has ribbons and bows and gift wrap and bags and boxes and somebody has to sell them those items. And that was my job, was selling to independent business people.

Vance Crowe [00:17:19] What did you learn about sales in that job?

Scott Pilchard [00:17:23] I learned the, the power of long-term relationships. The reason I got into the job was I, at the time was dating, who's now my wife Allison, her stepdad had had this job for 20 years. He was a legend in the west coast in this business. He had a stroke and then ultimately passed away. And so I was looking for a job and so I stepped into that job and, you know, I'd heard lots of stories. His name was Marvin, and I heard lots of stories of Marvin and how much money he made and how successful he was. And I learned very quickly and when I called on those customers that they really didn't care who I was. The fact that I was Marvin's stepson in-law didn't really matter a great deal. They had other people in line to do business with. And so for a, a territory that had produced six figures income the year before, I think I made $18,000 that year.

Vance Crowe [00:18:20] Ooh.

Scott Pilchard [00:18:21] And paid all my own expenses. And I realized then that no matter what my products were, what my prices were, or how charming and clever of a guy I was, I didn't have that long-term relationship that he had. And it was apparent very quickly.

Vance Crowe [00:18:39] So how does one overcome this?

Scott Pilchard [00:18:43] I met people in the industry where I could get a more kind of solid salaried type job in a similar part of the industry. I sold gifts, gifts and collectibles for a few years to those same gift shop customers and did very well at it.

Vance Crowe [00:19:01] Did you like selling?

Scott Pilchard [00:19:02] I did, and I do.

Vance Crowe [00:19:04] What do you like about selling?

Scott Pilchard [00:19:07] I love the creation of, and the acknowledgement of context between two people and where I can understand where they're coming from and craft my message to, to help them. I, I don't think, I don't believe in the kind of selling where you're just selling to sell something and have a transaction and move along. I have always done better in situations where I can create a relationship and have an ongoing relationship with that customer or client and ultimately friend. Because I think if, if you just sell things for the transaction and then you've gotta move along to somebody else, you can't create a relationship. So for me, it's understanding where that person sits and describing what I have to sell, which is ultimately to help them in a way that will make it easy for them to say yes.

Vance Crowe [00:20:00] Then, then you make it sound very easy.

Scott Pilchard [00:20:04] It comes naturally to me. And I, I'd love to tell you that I've spent lots of time studying the process, but that I, i, that's not really the case. It's, it's something that comes naturally to me.

Vance Crowe [00:20:15] Yeah. Sales is one of those things that in our culture it's very, it's like if you tell somebody I'm a salesman, like we cover over, I'm a salesman with all kinds of other terms. Right.

Scott Pilchard [00:20:26] We don't,

Vance Crowe [00:20:26] Very few people say that. Yeah. And in fact, I can remember not even all that long ago, I was talking with this guy named David Smith, who's an amazing salesman, but I didn't know this at the time. And I was sitting across from him being like, I'm not really a salesman. I'm not, and trying to talk with him about this. And only later did I discover like he doesn't view as being a salesman as a negative thing. And I read his book and you come to find out like his whole thing is very similar to you. Like, I'm trying to connect people with something that they need, that like if I can and if I can do it, then I solve a problem that they have and

Scott Pilchard [00:20:59] Right.

Vance Crowe [00:21:00] They're happy with that. Right?

Scott Pilchard [00:21:02] Yeah. When I'm talking with a client, I try and think about the topic at hand. How can I relate it to them with something that they understand? And so if I'm talking about an investment and what the yield is on that investment and how the price might change relative to economic conditions, I may relate it to, well, think about if you owned a rental home and you have a value of the asset and then you receive rental income, that's the yield on that investment. Well, the value of that home goes up and down every day. You just don't get a statement that tells you what it is. Well, you could look on Zillow, I suppose, but as long as those rents are occurring, that's the yield on that investment. And if you're owning that investment for a yield, it doesn't really matter what's happening with the price. It helps people become more comfortable with an investment that they do get a statement every month on, or that price may change, but as long as the yield is, as long as the interest or dividend payments are occurring, they don't need to worry so much about what's happening with the price. So it's finding a, an example of something they understand to help them get comfortable with the concept that maybe they don't,

Vance Crowe [00:22:22] You know, with investments, it's an interesting thing to be selling because you have, some people are driven very largely by the opportunities. So they're like, ah, I can go make money. And then there are other people that are driven very much by loss aversion, right? Like, all I wanna do is just not lose, or I want to get to the end of life and not have lost.

Scott Pilchard [00:22:43] Right.

Vance Crowe [00:22:44] But those are very different people to sell to.

Scott Pilchard [00:22:47] They are. And I think that's really the key to being successful in the kind of work that I do. And that is understanding the individual who is in that situation, and not only through specific questions and quantitative evaluation, but just understanding kind of in your gut what makes that person tick and, you know, where are they on that as that scale of being freaked out by loss versus seeking gain. And I talk very openly in my initial meetings with clients about that. I mean, ultimately I think the investments are kind of the easy part of what I do, much more important is the understanding of the individuals that I work with and, and what are the things that, what what are they afraid of and what are they seeking? And, and a lot of those questions come back to what their life was like as a child and how they worked within their own family and how they talked about money. Because money is a very emotional topic and I'm not, you know, sharing any great secrets here when I say that. But, but a lot of those emotions come from somebody's childhood and, and their family upbringing and, and how money was treated and talked about as they grew up that forms their thoughts about money today.

Vance Crowe [00:24:15] Yeah. And how do you bring that stuff up? I mean, to talk with somebody about what they're afraid of. People don't like being afraid. So to talk about what they're afraid of is even more uncomfortable

Scott Pilchard [00:24:24] Usually not a direct question like that. Yeah. It's more tell me about your experiences with money, not only today, but growing up and, you know, how do you and your wife communicate about money? How do you, how did your parents talk with you about money? What does money mean to you? And, and those kind of softer answers of the, then it brings out kind of the fears. There are those that I can say, you know, if we're talking about a specific investment, I can say, you know, what scares you about this? And people will be pretty specific with their answers. Many times,

Vance Crowe [00:25:04] I'm surprised if you can get the gusto out to ask someone a question, most of the time they'll answer it. It's, it's like, it, it's a funny thing, like people, the reason they don't open up to most people is that they weren't asked. Right. And like, I think of oftentimes just the very act of asking somebody is what it takes to get them to open up.

Scott Pilchard [00:25:22] Right, right. You know, in today's digital world of so many digital tools and AI and all those things, you know, I'm 62 years old, so maybe I've got a dozen years left working in the business. Who knows, I don't ever expect to retire because I love what I do. And I'm not weeding cotton in the central valley when it's 105. But, you know, a a meeting with a client for me really just starts out with a notebook and a pen. That's all I want to have between us. It's not a computer screen or, you know, something like that. Because that initial meeting is really the, you know, the ability to, for me to understand them and see if I feel like I can be helpful to them and certainly for them to, you know, get a feel for me and the way I work. And because if, if, if that comfort level isn't there between both parties, it's ultimately just a disaster waiting to happen. And so I could have the best investment in the world and somebody could have a bunch of money, but if that's not a good fit, then it's not gonna be good for either party.

Vance Crowe [00:26:39] So right now investing in a world where up is down and left is right and bonds are, you know, having all these weird, you know, one of, one of the, what used to be the thing that you would say it's as good as money, right? It's, it's, it's almost a liquid asset treasuries, like they're all over the place. How, how does somebody in your position handle all the craziness that's happening?

Scott Pilchard [00:27:02] Well, it, it's probably a good time for me to say nobody should interpret anything I share here as investment advice or recommendations. These are purely my opinions. You know, I'm a, my business is called Western Skies Advisory, my broker dealer and my registered investment advisory firm, independent financial group. You know, they do what they do to provide oversight and compliance and legal support for me. But ultimately to me, there are some things that never change. And one of the things that never changes as it relates to investments is the balance between risk and reward.

Vance Crowe [00:27:42] Okay.

Scott Pilchard [00:27:43] And, and I try and make that very clear to people early on in our conversations where, you know, look, if you're seeking higher returns, you need to be comfortable taking more risk. And that risk can come in different forms. You know, like some people might think of risk of, well, can I lose all my money? Or some people might think of risk of, well, how much will my investment go up and down in value? You know, there's things like reinvestment rate risk where it comes into play today where if you're talking about treasuries that are returning 5%, people say, well, okay, it's backed by the full faith and credit of the government. I get 5%. I want that. Well, at some point there's an end of that term and then you have to reinvest the money. And if rates are lower, then you've, you've experienced reinvestment rate risk. So what I try and do is talk and, and get a clear understanding of what somebody's comfortable with before making any kind of recommendation. But, but whether it's a higher interest rate environment or a low interest rate environment, or there's a war in Gaza or a war in Ukraine or a war in Iraq 25 years ago, there's always something going on from an economic or a geopolitical standpoint that will cause people to be concerned about their investments. My belief is my job is to help people and hold their hand and get them to think past those circumstances and think about what are they trying to accomplish within their financial life and how can we get there taking a level of risk that they're comfortable with.

Vance Crowe [00:29:31] So you're in your sixties, so you've had enough experience to be able to see different times in the history, different times in with the, like the economy

Scott Pilchard [00:29:41] Right?

Vance Crowe [00:29:42] Right now feels like we're at the end of history. Does that the way that it has always felt, is it always like, ah, this has never happened before. Completely unprecedented.

Scott Pilchard [00:29:54] My favorite saying in my business is this too shall pass. Because the reason I have a job as an advisor is that people have a hard time getting past all these things going on in relationship to their money. The financial press does not do a good job of the, the financial press isn't in business to help people make good decisions about their money. The financial press, like any other media organization is in business to get clicks and views and viewership. Right. As such, talking about sensible long-term thinking as it relates to your money doesn't get any of those things to occur. So they like to use words like crash and swoon and explode and, you know, things like that that really have, shouldn't have much bearing on what happens with somebody's money day to day. And so ultimately my job as an advisor and why I have a career is helping people see past those kinds of things. To think more rationally and sensibly about their money and understand that, you know, things do take time. I, I have to refer to one of your recent podcast guests, Michael Max. I like to think that when I have interactions with people or go to a conference or attend a class or read a book, I'm gonna pull one little thing that can be helpful to me.

Scott Pilchard [00:31:33] His little stick sticky note that his roommate wrote to him one day when he struggled, that says things take time is something I've incorporated into my conversations with my clients. That things take time and events and circumstances that occur in the short term may have an effect on somebody's money, but they don't have a long-term implication on how their money is gonna turn out.

Vance Crowe [00:32:05] The, the idea of this two, like, the things take time, this reminds me of a thing I saw somewhere on social media. Like, we didn't do this because it's easy. We did it because we thought it would be easy. And that's like the all of life, right? Where you only start doing something 'cause you're like, oh, this, I'll just quickly get this done. And then all of a sudden you open it up and you're like, this is way, way harder than I thought.

Scott Pilchard [00:32:31] Yeah. It's, it's, I mean, I think back to how I got in the investment business in the first place. This was in the late eighties, a buddy and I had started a cell phone company selling at the time, car phones. Remember when you had phones that were installed in

Vance Crowe [00:32:48] Your car? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Scott Pilchard [00:32:49] Yeah. So we started a company selling cell phones. And my uncle who was in the investment business, he referred me to one of his friends, a guy named Dick Nielsen, who was an architect. And I went and met with Dick in his conference room and I told him about how cell phones worked and arranged the installation in his car and all that. And to me it was just another meeting and I made a sale. And a few weeks later I, as it was at a family gathering with my uncle, and he said, you know, I was talking to Dick Nielsen and he said that you were the best salesman he's ever worked with in his life.

Vance Crowe [00:33:25] Wow.

Scott Pilchard [00:33:26] And I said, wow. And he said, would you like to come to work with me? And I said, I don't really know what you do. And he said, well, I'm in the investment business and I own a third party administration firm, and we call on CPAs and we help set up retirement plans and then we help with the investments. And I said, well, I I sure it sounds interesting. I knew Ken lived in a big house and he played golf and had a nice car. And so there was a, I'm noticing a theme here. Theme there, right. And so I, I went to work with Ken and he taught me the business. And it was life changing for me to enter a business that I knew very little about, but was taught by somebody who had 30 years of experience. So I felt like I got up the learning curve very quickly because most training programs in this business, you sit in a classroom and you get your licenses and then you make a bunch of cold calls and you just get beat up a bunch. And while I got beat up a bunch, I was able to sit in on meetings with CPAs and attorneys and talk about high level financial planning and retirement planning when I was brand new in the business. And I think that helped me immensely kind of understand not only how the business worked, but how I could be successful in it.

Vance Crowe [00:34:50] So a lot of people, they, they have their money invested and they watch what's going on in the world. And some of them, they have trouble sleeping at night. You are helping get people into stocks and bonds and, you know, mutual funds and whatever else is in your portfolio. Do you have trouble sleeping at night?

Scott Pilchard [00:35:10] I don't, I don't have trouble sleeping at night. But I do have moments where I think about the enormity of what I do for my clients, because while they start out as clients, most of them are very close friends now. And so I think about the fact that somebody has entrusted me with their family's financial future. And I ponder that for a minute or two. I recognize the enormity of that. And I couple take, take a couple deep breaths and kind of carry on with the confidence that I'm doing the right thing for them. And that if, if I have done my job evaluating their circumstances and understanding how they think about risk and how they think about where money sits in their lives and its importance in their long-term future, that they're gonna be okay. And if that's the case, then I'll be okay.

Vance Crowe [00:36:11] How do you feel about risk?

Scott Pilchard [00:36:13] I'm very comfortable with risk when I feel like I'm gonna get paid for it. And I talk to clients about that. I said, risk is not good nor bad, it's a thing. And if we're gonna get paid for taking risk and we understand what that risk is, then we can have a conversation about whether that makes sense for them. And so I think about that for myself in my business and in my investments in I'm okay with risk as long as I'm getting paid fairly for it.

Vance Crowe [00:36:46] Yeah, I like that. Right. That, I mean, that's, that's capitalism, right? You get paid for the risk that you're willing to take,

Scott Pilchard [00:36:51] Right? I mean, if you don't want risk, you know what your return will be and it will be return of principle, not return on principle. And, and for some people that's okay. I mean, I guess that's really, for me, the most important thing is my job is not to encourage people to take more risk. My job is to encourage people to have a portfolio of securities or financial instruments that are risk appropriate for them.

Vance Crowe [00:37:22] So speaking of risk, how do you feel about things like Bitcoin?

Scott Pilchard [00:37:27] Frankly, I don't know a lot about Bitcoin. I know conceptually what it is. It's never been anything I've ever recommended to anyone nor I can't imagine in my career doing so at the moment. You know, I think most of my clients, they've entrusted me with their nest egg, their retirement, their fu, their financial future. And I, if I don't understand something about an investment, I certainly am not going to make recommendations as a result. To give you an example, you know, I I I read about blockchain technology and how blockchain technology can revolutionize business transactions. And that's all based on cryptocurrencies. And I'm, I'm now demonstrating my lack of knowledge of, of those concepts. When we own a portfolio of securities and I hire a manager to buy companies, I'm gonna let that manager buy companies that may benefit from blockchain technology, not, I'm not adding value by trying to go out and identify who those companies may be.

Vance Crowe [00:38:39] Oh, that's interesting. So you work with people to help put together the, the portfolios.

Scott Pilchard [00:38:43] That's correct. So, you know, one of the best things about the investment business is you can do it a hundred different ways. The way I've chosen to do it is I don't make individual stock recommendations. I help evaluate a client's situation and hire managers to manage different pieces of the portfolio. And I keep an eye on those managers and, and understand how they work, what we can expect from them, report back to the client how those managers are doing and make changes when necessary.

Vance Crowe [00:39:20] There's so much to be done in the financial, like part of your life that it is just truly staggering. I mean, even if you don't have a large portfolio, let's say you, you know, invested your money through an IRA and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, I had a down year, now I need to convert my IRA to a Roth IRA and how can I sell these things without taking a capital gain? I mean, it is truly mind bending how much there is to do.

Scott Pilchard [00:39:47] It is, and I, you know, I, going back to my comments earlier about how I relate to clients, things they can understand, you know, I think one of the, one of the biggest limitations of our business is that our business is built to help clients that have a lot of money. And I say our, not just my business per se, but the industry as a whole, you know, if you go to Merrill Lynch or Morgan Stanley or some of those companies, the big wirehouse firms, they're gonna have 250,000 or $500,000 minimums before they want to work with you. Because it doesn't make financial sense to work with somebody with $40,000. It just doesn't. However, if you think about it, the people that are, young families that have $40,000 really need more help than a millionaire does in many cases. It's just not a good working model for large organizations to help them. And so to me, I've always tried to think about building my business around clients that need my help. Do I love clients that have a lot of money? Of course I do. But I also find fulfillment in helping clients that don't have a lot of money. And, and, and so, you know, I'm often asked what my account minimum is. And I learned this from somebody that I worked with decades ago.

Scott Pilchard [00:41:21] I said, I, I don't have an account minimum, I have a personality minimum. And in certain circles, I call it the no asshole rule. Like life's too short. If somebody wants to fight and argue with me, I, I don't need to put myself through that every day. And so, you know, some of my best clients, my best friends are people that might have 50 or $60,000 with me. And I love those meetings and I love those relationships. And those are some of my most rewarding experiences as an advisor.

Vance Crowe [00:41:56] So you mentioned that you, you know, always looked up to people that like golf and had a nice car. What, what do you like about golf?

Scott Pilchard [00:42:07] I like about, what I like about golf is that you are solely responsible for your results and there is a score at the end. And so, you know, growing up it was one of the things that my dad and I were very close with around golf. Not a lot of other things, but around golf. We played golf together since I was seven or eight years old. I always wanted to be better and I was looking for a shortcut, a way to get better. And what I found is that there aren't any shortcuts. If you're counting every stroke and you add up your score at the end, your score is your score. And nobody else is responsible for that later in life. I enjoy being in a beautiful place outdoors in typically nice weather. If it's raining, it's gonna be pretty hard to get me to play golf unless I'm in Scotland. But I enjoy the experience of being outdoors. And a lot of people say they don't like golf because it takes five hours to play. One of the reasons I like golf is it takes five hours to play

Vance Crowe [00:43:17] And

Scott Pilchard [00:43:17] That's five hours where the phone's not ringing and the interruptions aren't there. And it's a chance to relax a little bit and enjoy myself usually with people that I'm friends with. And love that time

Vance Crowe [00:43:32] When your children must all be grown then. 'cause I have a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old, and if I left for five hours to play golf, I'd be shot when I got home.

Scott Pilchard [00:43:41] Yes. My children are in their thirties and early forties now, so, and a couple of them have taken up golf, which they didn't when they were younger. So it's,

Vance Crowe [00:43:50] And you play with them?

Scott Pilchard [00:43:51] We play a bit, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:43:52] Are you a good golfer?

Scott Pilchard [00:43:55] I'm probably better than most. I'm like a 10 handicap, like an eternal 10 handicap. Hey,

Vance Crowe [00:43:59] That's pretty good. Yeah.

Scott Pilchard [00:44:01] I generally don't embarrass myself, but I've accepted that I'm, I I don't have any visions of being on the PGA tour champions or anything like that.

Vance Crowe [00:44:11] So you and I met at, in Arizona at the, at a Farm Bureau event. And you work with a lot of farm families?

Scott Pilchard [00:44:20] I do.

Vance Crowe [00:44:21] What is it that farm families need for investments?

Scott Pilchard [00:44:28] Investments usually isn't the place I start when working with a farm family. You know, most farm families, they make the joke of we're land rich and cash poor. It's not just a joke. It's usually true.

Vance Crowe [00:44:42] Meaning that their net worth could be very, very high. Oh yeah. But they might not have any access to it unless they start selling off the principle. Right. The the land itself.

Scott Pilchard [00:44:50] Yeah. Liquid investments are typically not their thing. A lot of the growers that I work with have told me that, you know, if I have a good year and I've got extra capital, I'm either buying more land or more equipment. That's how they think. And they've been tremendously successful using that thought process. So with that in mind, you know, where can an investment guy add value to somebody that doesn't have a lot of money sitting around to invest? And it's more on the planning side of things. I think that the, the family farm in America is something valuable and deserves a future. And there's a lot of forces at play limiting the future for family farms in America. And so

Vance Crowe [00:45:39] Wait, say more about that.

Scott Pilchard [00:45:41] Well, I just think that if you think of, you know, the difficulty of being a farmer and the fact that they're land rich and cash poor, and it's a hard, hard living, makes it difficult for many families to, you know, carry that business into the future. And so part of where I think I can add value for a family is helping them not only with the financial side of that experience, but also kind of the softer side and the communication within the family to get a plan together to think forward about how that family enterprise can succeed for future generations. I think the, and I may not have the statistics perfect here, but most family, family businesses, not just farms, 52% make it to the second generation. Only 9% make it to the third generation. Others say first generation builds it, second generation grows it, third generation spends it. However you want to look at those numbers. I feel like my job is to try and increase those percentages on that third and fourth and fifth generation. And to do that it requires planning, planning, whether it's estate tax planning or retirement planning or business succession planning. All of those relate to somebody recognizing their mortality.

Scott Pilchard [00:47:15] Talk about a hard concept for people to get their arms around is, and myself included, you know, I, I just always think I'm bulletproof and I'm never gonna die. And most business people think that way as well. And so they put off those decisions about what's gonna happen when I'm gone, what's gonna happen when I'm too sick to drive a harvester or get, be out in the fields directing traffic. And so as such, it requires planning to think about when those circumstances occur, how is the next generation, or maybe it's not the next generation, maybe it's a key employee, but if we think this enterprise is worth having around how can we put plans together to help make that happen? And so, you know, it, the CPAs and the attorneys and other consultants kind of work on the nuts and bolts of that. My job is to help work with those generations and get them to communicate and to think about how they can work together for the success

Vance Crowe [00:48:18] Of the enterprise

Scott Pilchard [00:48:19] Going forward.

Vance Crowe [00:48:21] Yeah, I think that I've, I've been thinking a lot about the way that people pass on, particularly in the ag community. How, how is it that you pass these things on? And I think in the past people spent a lot more time together. So like, you know, I don't know how often are your parents still around? They're

Scott Pilchard [00:48:40] Not.

Vance Crowe [00:48:40] Well, okay. Your, your children. I mean, how often do you get to see your children now? Right. Few times a year. Yeah, yeah.

Scott Pilchard [00:48:47] As a whole.

Vance Crowe [00:48:47] That's right. And like, you know, they say that you spend 90% of the time that you're going to with your children before they turn 18, and then after that, you know, you've only got that 10% and that, you know, rapidly goes down. And I think that like we didn't used to have such a, such an anywhere culture where people would get up and move and, and, you know, kids go away to school and, and now the passing down of things is much more difficult because there just aren't that number of exchanges that people have to, to interact and tell stories and talk about what they're gonna do. Right. And I think there are, people are a lot more isolated than they used to be.

Scott Pilchard [00:49:26] Yeah, I would agree. And I, and I, I think what what gives me hope is that the lifestyle that ag families live, they believe, and I believe that that's worth saving And perpetuating into the future. And I think that it, it is that kind of conversation when I'm talking with them, they're usually not talking about dollars and cents. They're talking about, you know, cattle ranchers is particularly, you know, land rich, cash poor. One of my clients that I work with says, you know, I've been in the cattle business for 40 years. I get my credit line out at the beginning, I have a year go by, I pay back the credit line and then I do that over and over for 40 years, but my land is worth 10 times more now than it used to be. And so how can I convert that into something that will allow my son and his family to come on the ranch and take over when it's a one family operation? Well, when they talk about that experience and that transition to the next generation, they don't talk about money. They recognize that that's needed for it to occur, but they talk about the land and the lifestyle that they've created within their family units and how they want that to carry on into the future. You know, a lot of people would say like, well, why do you farm?

Scott Pilchard [00:51:02] And it is that lifestyle that I think is attractive and seductive for many of those families that they want to keep that going for future generations when they see that in many instances in society, many of those things are breaking down in their opinion.

Vance Crowe [00:51:22] Yeah, I think so part of what you were saying about the passing things down, I did a whole project where grain elevator operators were coming here and talking about how they passed down their, their grain operations for these Legacy Interviews where people are talking about their life stories. Right.

Scott Pilchard [00:51:38] And

Vance Crowe [00:51:38] I heard a really profound line, I'm sure it's probably commonplace for you, but it really struck me because you can't really divide up a grain elevator. You know, you can't be like, oh, I'm gonna cut it in half and you take that half and we'll take that half. You could do something like that with the business dividends, but things get complicated. And when you're talking about something like land, you know, cutting it in half does more than take away half of its value because the, particularly out in Arizona, you need space. Right, right. You need lots of it.

Scott Pilchard [00:52:05] Right.

Vance Crowe [00:52:06] And the woman said succession planning got a lot easier for us when we realized that fair is not always equal. And I thought like, that is really profound. Right. Because we grow up in this world where like equal equals fair, right? Sure. But it's not. Right. And so she talks about how in ag they've always had to come up with ways to make things fair, but not necessarily be equal.

Scott Pilchard [00:52:31] Right. I would agree. That is, I've heard that from you on previous conversations. It's something I talk with families about in our conversations about, well, you know, son number one works actively in the business on the farm, son number two works in another part of our business and our daughter, she works for the city. And how can we create a plan that will help perpetuate the success of our ranch while at the same time treating people somewhat fairly, but not necessarily equal.

Vance Crowe [00:53:07] Yeah. Right. I think that happens a lot. It

Scott Pilchard [00:53:10] Does, it does. And so through entities and financial management, we have ways where we can help achieve those kind of things. But those things can't be implemented with success unless you have some kind of conversation and agreement about how that occurs. One of the folks that, one of the guys that I pay attention to, and it relates to family business, his name is Dave Spec, and Dave always says that that family conversation must occur, but it can't occur at Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Vance Crowe [00:53:47] Yeah, that's right.

Scott Pilchard [00:53:48] You, you leave that conversation out of the holidays, that's a special family meeting to have those kind of conversations.

Vance Crowe [00:53:54] Yeah. And I believe that those stories come up as a function of particularly, so I think there's like a role that we've not really talked about in society, which is you go from being a productive member of society, somebody that is like, I'm making money for the family, I'm contributing, I'm the person that makes decisions, I'm getting things done. And eventually you have to hit a point where you move from being a productive member to being the wise member and you've handed on the ability to make those decisions and, and the responsibility. And I think, and I've discovered this through doing the Legacy Interviews, that when people are not around their family members as often, like we were talking about before, Then you don't get to tell the stories about the things that happened to you along the way and how you dealt with problems and how you did these things. And those storytelling that happens with older people is actually a really important function for letting, getting people to let go of their productive years and become something else, become that wise thing. So I I personally believe that, that the, not only can you not have the succession planning conversation over Thanksgiving dinner, but like you have to have the storytelling about the farm and all the things that are going on around it way before in order to get somebody to that place where they're willing to let it go.

Scott Pilchard [00:55:19] Right,

Vance Crowe [00:55:19] Right.

Scott Pilchard [00:55:21] Well, and, and you know, you've been around a lot of businesses like this before. Don't you think that in, in other businesses where you have a, a broader organizational structure, communication about short, short-term and long-term goals is a normal part of running a business? Right. However, in a family business on the farm, that may not be the case. You know, you may, in, in a regular business, you may have, okay, on the first Monday of every month we have a organizational staff meeting. And in that meeting we're gonna talk about where are we at this quarter? Where are we for the year? What are we looking like over the next few years? I think it's rare that those kind of conversations happen within a family enterprise on the farm. And with the absence of those types of conversations, you have a chasm that builds between dad and the next generation or mom and dad and the next generation about what is the future of that business.

Vance Crowe [00:56:21] Yeah. And if it's taboo to bring up those topics, then that, that becomes, it's not, it's not like, Hey, we need to figure out what we're our ad spend or where are we putting the, the money into the business. This is like, Hey, I've got a wife and children and we've gotta make a decision. Is it a worthwhile decision for us to stay here for 10 more years until we pass on the farm? Or should we be going to find off farm work or going to find our own land? You don't have those conversations. You could spend 10 years going down a path and then find out, oh, this was not a part of their plan at all.

Scott Pilchard [00:56:53] Right. I, I'm interested in your opinion, Vance, when you think about the label of, I am a farmer, you know, if you talk to somebody who's a director of sales for a manufacturing company, you

Vance Crowe [00:57:06] Say, you know

Scott Pilchard [00:57:07] What, who are you? And they'll say, well, I'm a director of sales for a technology company. But when you ask a farmer, he'll say, I'm a farmer. And so I think about the instances that are occurring in some, in instant, in, in some cases where being a farmer may not be the most economically attractive solution for that family going forward. Meaning it, if my land is worth so much now, maybe it makes sense to sell my land to developers and do something else with the capital. And in doing so, I've ensured my family's security and the security for future generations. However, when I do that, I'm not a farmer any longer. And I think that's a really interesting question, and we'd be interested to know, in your conversations with farmers, do those kind of topics ever come up?

Vance Crowe [00:58:07] Oh, man. All the time. Like in particular around, I, I think lately a lot of livestock, right? Where people are saying, I'm getting out of the dairy industry, right? They've been a dairyman and they didn't do it, you know, because it was a part of a summer job. They did it because their dad did it and their dad did it before them. And now they're looking at the world and they're saying like, all right, if I leave right now, I may be able to get something for my herd, or I may be able to get something for my equipment, but if I wait and I let that time tick on until I'm forced to make this decision, then it might not be worth anything. But if I'm not a dairyman, what am I? Right? I'm right.

Scott Pilchard [00:58:45] Maybe

Vance Crowe [00:58:45] You're talking about a guy that's a guy in here that was like 55. He was like, the way my father talked about people that retired at 55, there's no possible way that I could do that. And so he's stuck in a position where selling off exactly, to your point, all of his stuff changing out from being a dairyman or calling himself retired, just it doesn't work. And that doesn't happen, I think with other people. I think other businesses are afraid of failure or they don't wanna be seen as like, you know, letting everybody down. But the, that name part of it is a pretty, and, and being a part of the culture, you know, if you're not a dairy man and you're still going to the dairy meetings, are you still going to the farm bureau? Like

Scott Pilchard [00:59:22] When you go to the coffee shop and hang out with the other dairymen, do you still get to go? Yeah, right.

Vance Crowe [00:59:29] It's not something that ordinary people living in the city deal with.

Scott Pilchard [00:59:35] So I think the last 10 or 15 minutes of our conversation or illustrate the challenges in family business succession for farming, and none of those conversations, or very little of them were about dollars and cents, they're more about interpersonal issues and communication and or lack of communication and the challenges that, that those things create.

Vance Crowe [01:00:00] Yeah. And I think in all areas, like the ability for the matriarch and patriarch of the family to be able to communicate will make things much, much better. But that there's something really hard about talking to your family about money, right? Like, it's not like when you're talking about it in the, you know, the more objective sense of, well, this is our business and we're gonna talk about it and we can pull out the spreadsheets because even there's a lot of intangible things on that farm.

Scott Pilchard [01:00:27] Sure, sure. So one of my personal, well, I guess it's a professional goal, but it's mine, so it's personal is, is to create a, a, a family business succession, family business succession summit or meeting to help families come learn about some of these other issues regarding communication with different generations and certainly some of the tools that are required for transition, a successful transition to occur. But that's one of my goals is in the next couple years, to put something together like that where families could come and in a, in an open setting, in gain some skills in that area and not rely on kind of a one by one conversation.

Vance Crowe [01:01:15] There is a really exceptional company called the White Commercial Corporation, where they, they're a grain broker.

Scott Pilchard [01:01:23] Yep.

Vance Crowe [01:01:23] So they have all these elevators that, that become a part of their brokerage. And a part of what they do is bring people together and have conversations in a big group about like, Hey, who's here has done succession? How has it gone? What went wrong? And those are, I've been in there, they're really powerful. That is like a really, but the question I have is, it's a little like getting people to face their mortality. Do you think it'll be hard to get people to come to a conference like that?

Scott Pilchard [01:01:52] I don't think so. And part of this relates to an experience I had where I'd taken your input on a few years ago when I was still working with Farm Bureau Wealth Management in conjunction with the Arizona Farm Bureau. We had a, a, a meeting of, at the Women's Leadership Conference, we had a meeting of primarily women who were either owners or spouse of owners of farms and ranches in Arizona. We hosted a dinner and the topic of the dinner was conserving your legacy.

Vance Crowe [01:02:27] Oh, I remember this. Remember? Yeah. Yeah,

Scott Pilchard [01:02:28] Yeah, yeah. And so we had about 20 women get together, and it was co-sponsored with one of the local banks that I work with and the Arizona Farm Bureau. So there were three guys in the room, myself, Brenton Colburn, my friend from Foothills Bank, and Phil Bashaw, who's the CEO of the Arizona Farm Bureau. And the rest were women of ages from 30 to 75. And we were very worried about were, would they be willing to talk about their own family situations in a group setting? And let me tell you, two and a half hours later, we had to cut 'em off because the conversation and the contribution of very personal stories within their families of successes and failures and trials and tribulations as it related to farm ownership and passing down the farm to generations. We had young, young women who were farm wives who held their hand up at family meetings and said, we want to be included. One of the, one of the women wrote a letter to the rest of the family and said, I want to be included in these things. I know I don't operate the farm every day, but I'm married to one of the men who does, and I feel like my opinion ought to be valued. And she wrote a letter to the family, which was a very successful experience.

Scott Pilchard [01:04:01] We had a mom and daughter who lived together, who had planned ahead for future health challenges and what was gonna happen with the family home and the family property. And so, based on that experience, I think that if we put the right kind of curriculum together and the right kind of setting to allow for open conversation to occur, I think people would be very eager to have those kinds of discussions with others who have been down that path before.

Vance Crowe [01:04:32] Yeah. And then it's like we said at the beginning, if you ask somebody a question, if you can get 'em to show up, like once, once you ask them a question, they'll, they'll tell you

Scott Pilchard [01:04:39] It was a very good steak dinner that night, by the way, too. So that helped.

Vance Crowe [01:04:42] That does help. Well, Scott, if people wanted to learn more about what you do and and how you work, where would they go?

Scott Pilchard [01:04:52] Well, they could certainly check out my website. My firm is called Western Skies Advisory. My website is Western skies ad v.com. That's got all my contact information there. And yeah, you'll probably find me at any kind of ag gathering in Arizona or in the southwest and would love to chat with folks.

Vance Crowe [01:05:18] Yeah. And you, you, I remember we met and you just chatted me right up and we became instant friends and we've known each other for you were, you had counted it up four years now, eh?

Scott Pilchard [01:05:26] Yeah, it was 2019 at the Farm Bureau meeting in,

Vance Crowe [01:05:31] Yeah, not long before COVID hit then.

Scott Pilchard [01:05:33] Not long before COVID. And you know, I mentioned earlier that I always take one thing away from an interaction. You spoke at that conference and one of the things that I took away, and I've quoted many times to other people is that when you're in a discussion with somebody that you vehemently disagree with, the best way to be successful is to understand their position better than they do.

Vance Crowe [01:05:56] Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

Scott Pilchard [01:05:57] And when you do that, you can accurately defend your position.

Vance Crowe [01:06:02] Yeah, that's exactly Steel manning, we call that. There

Scott Pilchard [01:06:04] We go. That's

Vance Crowe [01:06:05] Right. Yeah. I love it. Well, Scott, thank you so much for coming on. I've

Scott Pilchard [01:06:08] Really enjoyed it. I'm glad I had a chance to come by.