How to Run a Business When Things Get Tight | Chris Barron

Chris Barron [00:00:00] Sometimes you get your best advice from the furthest away

Vance Crowe [00:00:03] Perspective

Chris Barron [00:00:04] Because they'll come in and ask a question

Vance Crowe [00:00:07] That

Chris Barron [00:00:07] You would otherwise, somebody that knew the situation might not ask it 'cause it would be

Vance Crowe [00:00:11] A quote

Chris Barron [00:00:11] Unquote dumb

Vance Crowe [00:00:12] Question.

Chris Barron [00:00:13] And there are no dumb questions. You, you know, we, that, that's when you get the best change in business is when those questions are asked that you would never even think of asking. Welcome

Vance Crowe [00:00:23] Back to the podcast. I'm glad

Chris Barron [00:00:25] You're here

Vance Crowe [00:00:26] Today. Chris Baron of Agdu Solutions Returns. Longtime listeners of the podcast know that I've had Chris on a couple of times because I think he's just such an interesting person to talk to. U Solutions runs a consulting agency that helps farms level up, whether it's a small operation that's trying to figure out how to bring more kids on, or if it's a big business, trying to figure out how can we weather the storms of up and down. The reason this conversation is so interesting is that Chris has the entrepreneur's mind and he can apply it to anything. And so as we talk about the challenges that businesses face, he may be talking about agriculture, but really what I found out was this conversation can apply to anyone, including advice he gave to my own wife that I promptly went home and shared with her. I think you're gonna love this conversation because it's applicable to you no matter what, because all of us are in business and all of us are trying to get better. We're gonna get to that interview in just a moment. But first we have an upcoming class for interest-based communications here in November. If you've been thinking that some of your ideas don't make the light of day, they don't compete with other people that are more charismatic, but not as careful about the details, then this course might be right for you. Here we'll talk about how to negotiate, how to have better conversations, how to deal with conflict and how to present. But better than using my words is somebody that actually took the course. Let's go to that and then head to the interview with Chris Baron.

Chris Barron [00:02:00] I learned here how to communicate with intent and with interest. Very lecture light and practice heavy to collaboration. The intimacy with the cohorts, the caring nature that they shared across the group. I don't think that would've come across in a larger group or in a classroom setting. You know, just relax and, and talk was, I think, very effective. And I have some vision, some clarity for how I can take what I learned going forward and change the trajectory of my life. Interest-Based Communication. Learn more at Articulate Ventures slash IBC.

Vance Crowe [00:02:40] Chris Barron, welcome back to the podcast. Good to be here. How are you today? I'm doing great man. Your episode was a crowd favorite. We got to talk about communications and overcoming challenges, so I was excited to have you back on. And this time what I wanted to talk about was the pressure that businesses get into as a business owner myself, I realized like you can be struggling for a long time. All of a sudden things get easy, everything's going along, and then things start getting tight again. Either sales aren't working or stuff starts happening and I think every operation goes through this and you've seen so many operations that have gotten themselves into a hole and had to dig themselves out, whether it's agriculture or not. I kind of wanted to talk about the life cycle of getting into challenges, identifying them and then getting out of them.

Chris Barron [00:03:31] Yeah, I think that's a really good place to start in a conversation kind of around just business in general, right? I mean, it, it doesn't matter if it's, you know, like I, I said before we started recording, you know, it doesn't matter if it's an airline or if it's a, you know, if it's a farm, if it's a pharmaceutical company or whatever it is. What happens is we have cycles in business that create the challenges that you're talking about. Whether it's, you know, communication employees, the economy, black swans, something that comes out of, you know, in agriculture we always kind of blame the weather and the markets, but there's so many other factors that interfere with, with business and can, and you know, and, and a lot of times it's within that are some of the biggest challenges and create some of the most amount of stress. You know, you can, you kind of can count on some external challenges, but occasionally those challenges come from internal, especially if you've got a business that's got a lot of people in it where communication is so important and navigating the labor force and all that kind of stuff, I think is is one of those areas where it probably creates more stress than some others. For sure.

Vance Crowe [00:04:44] So paint a picture for me of a business that was once strong in a different time and then as the businesses move forward, suddenly the owners find themselves struggling in a way that they haven't before. How does this happen? Do you have an example of this and then when do people realize, hey, there's a problem?

Chris Barron [00:05:04] Yeah, we've seen this, you know, obviously I, the majority of the work we do with our clients ag view solutions and and Farm Profit manager is, is around the idea of financials and transition and team health and those are the areas. And to get into a specific example, I mean I could give you 50 of them, I'll just pull one one off the shelf here. But you know, it's, it's usually an economic thing that creates the most stress because if you, for example, have a leadership team of four people and they can be related or not related. If they're related, that creates a whole nother layer of, of challenges because you have all the emotion in it. But, you know, the example I will give you is they were related and you know, when you have related parties that are trying to run business together and it was an entrepreneurial operation, which agriculture is entrepreneurial, right? You're, you're kind of on your own. It's a lot like, you know, if you decide to build widgets and, and supply a contractor or something with certain things and, and become entrepreneurial, it's kind of the same thing. And where I've seen the issue come up quite often and this specific example is a scenario where the, the cash flow got really tight and everybody was getting along good when the profitability was there, all of a sudden cash flow got tight two years in as cash flow got tight because of marketing conditions and some other variables that interfered with this particular case was weather and just didn't have sufficient income.

Chris Barron [00:06:41] And now all of a sudden people can't get along, you know, because they're stressed. So they're frustrated. So now they're not communicating like they should, you know, when, when it's easy everybody can get along, but when it's difficult, people start not listening to each other. They start forming opinions. And one thing that I, I try to tell people a lot of times in business under stress is just because, you know, everybody might have a different opinion. 'cause I can give you one, one solid solution and I can give it to four people and all four are gonna have a different opinion of it, right? Nobody, nobody ever looks at at the exact same thing in the same way. And so I think that's, that creates some conflict in the sense that, you know, well why does he think that? And I have no idea why she thinks this and it, and it should be, you know? And, and, and the ironic thing is, is they're all four trying to pull the business in the same direction. They have different ideas and then what happens is they start to break down and don't listen to each other. And then that's why we have job security occasionally is we get called in because now all of a sudden nobody on the team's listening to each other and we gotta step back. And I think that's where a third party comes in a lot because, you know, when a business develops stress and gets into an issue, I think that's where sometimes you can bring a third party person in. It doesn't have to be a consultant, doesn't have to be a, an expert in that, in, in industry even as much as it is somebody to make them stay professional with each other.

Chris Barron [00:08:17] Communicate, listen, because a, a third party, even if it's a a, a person in the same industry that comes in from a different business, from a ways away just to help 'em, they'll listen to that person ironically and not listen to the person sitting next to 'em. 'cause that person sitting next to 'em doesn't know anything. You know?

Vance Crowe [00:08:35] Oh man. I I think one of the hardest things in a, in a family run or a small operation is that truism that you are never a prophet in your own land. Yep. You know, my, my wife is truly one of the greatest experts in physical therapy in the entire country. And when her dad has a crick in his neck, she is the last person he will ask. Yep. And you're like, what are you doing? People fly in to see her. Right. But that's just the case, right? That he still sees her as a 12-year-old that Yeah. You know, had to stuff her homework into her bag and, and go home. And when you're trying to run a business, this, this can happen to people where they don't feel respected and good ideas get passed over. Right. And

Chris Barron [00:09:12] You know, I I would tell her probably what she needs to do is to drive a hundred miles away and come back then she just had a 200 mile trip to, to give some advice to her dad. So, and, and that's, I I jokingly say that sometimes, but it's so true. I I've said that in my own operation. 'cause I feel, you know, and, and, and I'm no different, right? I mean, we have a a, a collaborative farm operation in Northeast Iowa and I'm the president and CEO and kind of supposed to be responsible for the whole thing. And, and I am, my management style is hands off. You know, I believe in delegating authority and responsibility as opposed to delegating work. 'cause that true leadership is that right? And I've gotten to the point where I, I, I turned 60 this year. I'm getting to the point where I'm trying to get into the mentorship role where I, I even interfere less, but mentor, right? And, and I think that's the ultimate level of success is if you, if if anybody in business can get to a point where they become the mentor in the operation, that's the epitome of success. And I've told the guys here different times, it's like, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna drive to Minnesota and back and when I get back, hopefully you'll listen to what I have to say, you know, because it goes in one ear and out the other. And we see that more so with with family than we do small businesses that are non-related. They tend to listen better to each other. But, but it's the same thing, you know? But family is definitely an emotional issue.

Vance Crowe [00:10:38] I mean, that's so deep. It's biblical, right? It's, it's Jesus himself that couldn't, couldn't even preach in Nazareth, right? And so we know that this is as timeless as things can be. The other challenge I think about businesses accepting that there's a problem is there's always problems in businesses. And so like you're always like, Hey, I'm dealing with the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. But there's something tangibly different about a, oh, we need to make a real course change versus we gotta be able to just handle the, the, you know, the the gripping that you have to do when you're running your own company.

Chris Barron [00:11:11] Yeah. And that's where I think when you have multiple leaders, one of the things we try to, to coach operations on is, is to really get super clear with roles and responsibilities and then ultimately decision rights and then have people take accountability for certain divisions of the business of, you know, because it doesn't matter what the business is, whether it's ag or any other business, but you know, every, every business has multiple roles required to, to complete a successful turn. And so when you do that, if you can get the, you know, people assigned in those areas that they wanna be, sometimes it's not good. I mean, you know, you talk about, you know, building a seat for somebody. I've always kind of thought the other way of, I I've always thought you bring the person in and you figure out what seat you need to develop for them because you can, you can make a seat and hire somebody and put 'em in it and they might not fit, but they might all of a sudden be really good at two or three other things that's complimentary to the business. And so I think I've always kind of thought the opposite of, of building the seats and then trying to fill 'em. It's, it's get the people first and then build the seat. It just my experience anyway in that. And, and I think that a alleviates some stress too because I think sometimes people are put in a seat or they've been in a seat for a long time and it's not really the seat they like and they're not in doing what they wanna do as much and they're looking across the fence or across the room and saying, I wish I was doing that instead of this.

Chris Barron [00:12:44] But I would also say though, sometimes be careful what you ask for. 'cause you might get it. It's like, you know, when you're a little kid and you're playing with, you know, friends and somebody's got a toy and you're like, well, I want that. And then you get it and you're like, well this isn't as cool as I thought it was. I want my other one back. You know? And so the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. And so I think sometimes trading some roles, occasionally, even in business when there's some stress, like how about if you take this seat for a week and see what, what this other person's seeing from their vantage point and then switch back. It gives a better perspective than just having an argument about it. And again, it's in any business you can do that is just trade seats for a week or two do that other person's role and find out, okay, well maybe now I get what, what the complaint was, you know?

Vance Crowe [00:13:34] Well I think that's a really insightful way to do it because there's so much, even if a person is trying to tell somebody else the complications of their work, you have the knowledge curse, right? You have the, I know so much about how this works and all the nuances and the things you can and can't and should and shouldn't do that to try and write it down or express it to another person just doesn't work. But getting them to sit in the seat and really see,

Chris Barron [00:13:58] Hey,

Vance Crowe [00:13:58] These are the trade offs you're gonna have to make. And there's a sacrifice in every, in every job. Just giving somebody that real firsthand experience has gotta be really eye-opening.

Chris Barron [00:14:08] Yeah, it is. And then, you know, the, and, and you can expand that even onto leadership. I've been really blessed to get to work with some really pretty advanced operation operations. I mean, you've seen 'em at our conference that are very executive minded. And I've learned a lot personally just from people that I've gotten an opportunity to help. Sometimes I, I leave their operation and I'm like, I should be paying them what I just learned, you know, because, you know, they're, they're really good at, at being a leader. And so often what we see is people get pushed into a leadership position 'cause they're really good at what they're doing, and now all of a sudden the business has grown. So then they get promoted into that leadership role and now they're in that leadership role and they're not, they've never been trained on leadership or that kind of communication, which goes back to your in, you know, your Interest-Based Communication course, which I think is, you know, every leader should have to go through something like that because what happens is they get into this position where they, they know how to do it better than the other person. And so then they tend to micromanage that frustrates the person in that position. And then you start getting turnover. And that's, that's one of the big stressors that we see that happens a lot is, is promotion without the education that should go with it. And then a lot of businesses look at continuing education, or they look at hiring that, that person into that role, because I gotta pay 30% more as an expense.

Chris Barron [00:15:41] It's not an expense, it's an investment in the business. We see this in agriculture all the time, you know, a lot of a, a big farm operation will buy a $700,000 sprayer and a $600,000 tractor and a million dollar combine and not think really that much of it because you have to have that stuff. But then when they go hire somebody, they try to be as cheap as they can and they'll try to hire a 40 or a $50,000 a year person instead of that a hundred thousand dollars a year or more person that's gonna bring more value. And I've never understood that. I, I've always been a firm believer of the people are your number one asset and they don't depreciate like machinery does. You know, people, people actually appreciate kinda like a land investment or investments that appreciate and value people appreciate, especially if you train them. And so I've never looked at people as, as like an expense. And I think so many businesses do, especially the big ones. You know, when the economy gets tough and we're talking about stressors, what's the first thing they do? They, they lay people off. Well then the people that are left are like, well, when's my number gonna come up? And you think that doesn't interfere with productivity. It it absolutely interferes with productivity. So I'd never been a big fan of that either. I've, I've often thought, well, and I know there's been a couple of airlines that have done this, where they'll go to the people and they'll say, you know, Hey, we're having some tough times.

Chris Barron [00:17:12] Would everybody wanna participate? So we have to lay anybody off and everybody takes a little bit of cut so that the business is functioning and, and manage the stress that way. And then you have people that buy in. And so that's where we see the biggest stress though, is it, it always comes to down to the people part, you know, the economy and stuff's gonna ebb and flow, but the people are, are the key

Vance Crowe [00:17:38] Well with people. And I mean, like, I've had to learn this, the hard way I think every business owner has is you get exactly what you pay for. And the difference between a b player and an A player is almost indescribable exponential. Yeah. You can have a b player that, like, they're doing everything they're supposed to. They're, they're accomplishing things on time. But then you have that other a player that's like, I'm thinking ahead. I'm, I'm offering opportunities, I'm finding ways to save and I'm just continuing to go and go and go. But it is, it takes a lot of discipline as a business owner to find and train a players because they're more expensive, they're harder to find. And if you're, if they're really gonna be successful, you have to stop doing what you are really successful at to do that thing of training them. Yeah.

Chris Barron [00:18:24] The other thing I, I think we all have to be careful of when we're hiring people in business or when we're working in business with other people. So it really doesn't, you know, either applies to this point, but I think what happens is you have people that can be an, a player that are really good at what they do. So they're like up in this quadrant that's like, they're just awesome, but they're not very fun to work with or people don't trust them or they don't like 'em. And so businesses have to be super careful too, of would you rather have somebody that's really good that's a pain in the butt and nobody likes 'em and nobody, you know, but they're really good at what they do versus somebody that's on the other side of the quadrant that's not the best at doing everything, but they're the easiest to get along with and the most fun to work with and that type of thing. And you know, I, I know that's the thing that we look at a lot of times too, and we'll have conversations around with leadership teams when we work with 'em of, okay, well you have this person that's phenomenal at what they do, but they're a cancer to the business and you, and you probably need to let 'em go and find another person that's really good and, and still pay 'em and they'll, they can learn. A lot of times we see that in business too. You know, people, you know, especially in agriculture, it's like, well, this person's never farmed, so I'm not sure I can hire 'em. Well that's the best one to hire because they don't come with a whole bunch of preconceived ideas, bad habits, so, you know, so you can train them from the ground up.

Chris Barron [00:19:54] And so that's the other thing that I've always thought is a bit of a fallacy is that, you know, your education has to be in your, your geographic area of where you're gonna work is, I don't, I've never believed that either. It's like, you know, people can, people can learn and a lot of times they're better off if they aren't trained in that industry until they get to the industry. You know, understand basics and all that kind of stuff. And be a good human, be a good person, and, and they'll be the best employee you could ever have.

Vance Crowe [00:20:24] We're gonna take a break here for just one moment to talk about Legacy Interviews. Legacy Interviews is a service we offer to record your loved ones telling their life stories so that future generations can know

Chris Barron [00:20:35] Their

Vance Crowe [00:20:35] Family history. We do the service here in my St. Louis office, or you can do them online from anywhere in the world. This conversation is deeply impactful, very easy for the guest, and it results in a video or multiple videos of your loved one telling stories that they often don't get to reflect on. Let's take a moment to listen to a little bit about Legacy Interviews. How would you describe this to somebody that never heard of a legacy interview?

Chris Barron [00:21:03] Well, we have described it

Vance Crowe [00:21:06] To

Chris Barron [00:21:06] Our friends. Everybody that we talk to is like, whoa, that is really neat. It's just a way of sharing who I am,

Vance Crowe [00:21:13] Who blend is who we are as a couple 48 years of living together, being married together. There's so many things that happen. Was this what you thought it would be like? Yes. Yeah. Pretty much. Both of us got good imaginations and yeah, yeah, we do Legacy Interviews. Learn more at Legacy Interviews dot com. One of the things you mentioned about like, if you have a person that's awesome at their job and they're, they're terrible to work with, is those people, often the reason that they're so good is they have a voice in the back of their head that was their dad waking 'em up in the morning, being like, you're lazy. You're you, you're never getting anything done. You're never doing it. Right. So that guy is trying to live up to his father and doesn't realize that the way his dad prompted energy outta him is not gonna be a good way to prompt energy out of somebody that's not your family member. Somebody that doesn't have the same bringing the upbringing that you do. And I think those guys, it's not that they want to be assholes to work with, it's that they literally don't have any other way. This is the only way they know how to motivate themselves. So it's how they motivate other people. Yeah. But it can be unlearned.

Chris Barron [00:22:17] Yeah, I think so too. I was just gonna bring up an example there too, where I had a, a grower, I was working with the hit who had ha had been having a little bit of turnover and so I was like, you know, you gotta do these exit interviews, you gotta sit down and we gotta understand the philosophy behind the exit. And so we've put together some pretty comprehensive exit interviews to have a good understanding of what they really liked about the job, what they didn't like, and, and even compensate 'em, tell 'em ahead of time, you know, I'm gonna compensate you because this is gonna bring value back to the business. Okay, so I'm gonna give you 150 bucks to sit down here for for a half an hour and I need some honest feedback. You can, you know, throw darts at me, tell me what you need to tell me. Because if you don't do that, I ca if I don't get that constructive criticism as a business owner or as an executive, I can't get better. And so, and that's and

Vance Crowe [00:23:11] A hundred times better to get it face to face than to hear it from the community.

Chris Barron [00:23:14] And, and

Vance Crowe [00:23:15] If the community's how you get it, that's bad news.

Chris Barron [00:23:17] Yeah. And when they're leaving they'll tell you, you know, nine 90% of the time, occasionally you'll have an individual that's pretty reserved and isn't gonna let it out, but about 90% of the time you get the feedback you deserve and need. And in this one particular case, it was exactly what you said. He realized that he was his dad and he was, he was reprimanding his employees like they were his kids. And he is like, I didn't realize I was doing that. You know, he said, I, I was, you know, I thought I was, you know, doing all this stuff right and being a good boss and everything. And, and he said I was my dad. And it's exactly when you said that, it reminded me of that situation. It's a hundred percent true.

Vance Crowe [00:24:02] Well, you know, I mean I think that they happen on two different polls in this way. You've got the guy that's acting like his dad and then you've got the guy that's trying not to act like his dad. And so what he does is he doesn't give any feedback at all. People have no idea what he thinks, how he feels if they're doing well or not. And the guy's sitting there being like, Hey, if I got a problem with you, I'll tell you. But he doesn't understand that human beings, you know, they need, right, the constant interaction. They need that constant like feedback. And if you give them that feedback, they will react to that feedback. So it's finding that balance

Chris Barron [00:24:33] Because

Vance Crowe [00:24:33] A guy that doesn't give any feedback, I think is just as bad or maybe even worse than the guy that gives too much. Yeah.

Chris Barron [00:24:39] And we see that too sometimes on the leadership side. Back to that for a minute, just stoked a memory is, you know, we occasionally see, you know, leader leadership is, is also a bit of training and in a lot of industries, and I'll, I'll speak to ag 'cause I know that one the most, but we do the, the most horrific job of training. You know, we'll put somebody in a position and set 'em up for failure 80% of the time it's like, you know, here's, you need to go here, turn left, go right, then go over here and then go into this place and do this and do this. And you just gave them like 18 different, you know, do this, do this, do this. And it's like, okay. And they go and they do about half of it and then you're pissed because they're not, the employee isn't doing what you ask them to do. Well, if you're a crappy trainer, you're, you're gonna get what your training is. And and that really became apparent to me. My, my son Sloan came back from the Marines and came back into our business and, and he had been here about two months and he's like, I need to come talk to you about some stuff. And I'm like, yeah, what, what's up? You know? And he's like, we suck at training here. And I'm just quoting him. He is like, this is, this is like unbelievably horrific. It's terrible. You know, we put somebody in a, you know, in a million dollar machine and turn 'em loose with about 15 minutes of training and don't, you know, he had come from the Marines where, you know, he was in a communications division and they'd have radios the size of a semi.

Chris Barron [00:26:11] They'd have to take 'em completely apart, put 'em all back together. So they understood how it worked, not only how to use it, but understand the intricacies of the system. And he's like, I'm not saying we need to take a planter apart, put it back together or any other machines. But, you know, to get pissed at somebody because they didn't do what you asked them to do, you didn't have to start looking in the mirror and understand that it's not the employee's issue, it's your issue as a leader. If you're not training properly. If they're not getting, you're not getting out of it what you want, then you gotta look in the mirror. And I thought that was, that was really good constructive criticism. And I, I think we've improved some, but,

Vance Crowe [00:26:49] So if you get that feedback, what is the training that you institute? You know, how does somebody that's got, they're already working 18, 20 hours a day, they're, they feel like, I don't, what do you mean I gotta stop and now I gotta hold somebody's hand through this. Because, you know, it's one thing to, to sit in a, on a podcast and say they need to do training, but training comes at an expense. It does. It's your time.

Chris Barron [00:27:09] Yeah. And, and, and this is kind of how I handle it because you know, somebody shows up with an idea, great, that's implement it. You got the idea. Start putting a plan together, then you tell, you tell me how we need to do this then. So I put it right back on him and said, great, let's, let's start training. Tell me what we need to be doing because you, it's your idea. It's a great idea. But you know, okay, be careful again, what you ask for, we need to change. Okay, well then you, you lead it, you you're in charge. We got, you got another role now. And you know, so it's pretty hard to complain about something when you just got given the

Vance Crowe [00:27:47] Responsibility

Chris Barron [00:27:49] And the ability to do it. And so, and that's, that's how I think as leaders, how you should handle those things. Because a lot of times the the people have really good ideas. Especially, I mean, I see this with some, some leaders, you know, they, they already know everything. I mean, I had that lovingly with my brother-in-law. We were like oil and water years ago when we farmed together. And I remember the first time I told him wanted to hire a consultant, he looked at me like, what? And I said, yeah, I want to hire a consultant to kinda look at our financials, look at our, this business from 30,000 feet. I said, we're in the, we're in the trees. I want to have somebody look at, he's like, I don't understand why. I mean, we already know everything. And I'm like, oh, we do. Huh. Interesting. I didn't know we already knew everything. I don't know everything. I'm glad you

Vance Crowe [00:28:33] Do.

Chris Barron [00:28:33] But there, I think there's a, there's more people than you would think that are probably overtly confident in what they're doing. 'cause they are really good at it that they don't really necessarily wanna listen to anybody else. And sometimes you get your best advice from the furthest away perspective because they'll come in and ask a question that you would otherwise, somebody that knew the situation might not ask it. 'cause it would be a quote unquote dumb question. And there are no dumb questions. You, you know, we, that that's when you get the best change in business is when those questions are asked that you would never even think of asking. But somebody, well,

Vance Crowe [00:29:10] And when

Chris Barron [00:29:11] You're in industry does,

Vance Crowe [00:29:12] When you're in the team meeting, the problem is there's so much shared context Yeah. That you may think, oh, okay, I I know this thing, I'm gonna say it. And you don't realize that the people around the table don't know what you're talking about, don't have an understanding or whatever their understanding is. It's the inverse or something very different from you. And the benefit of having a consultant or somebody from the outside is now all of a sudden people have to articulate the unspoken part so that that way the third party, you know, can be brought up. And then they find out that they're actually saying things out loud that other people in the room are like, wait, I didn't, I didn't know that. Wait, that's what we do. That's how we make money. That's one of the big challenges we're against.

Chris Barron [00:29:50] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:29:51] And all of a sudden you start realizing like, oh, these people think they have a lot more shared context than they really do. And so the challenge is getting them to talk. Yeah.

Chris Barron [00:29:59] Usually what happens in our observation is you get group thinking one cycle. So if you, if you change the team around a little bit within a year, within a cycle of business, everybody's kind of thinking the same way. Even though they don't agree on some of the nuances there. It's, there's a lot of group think. And so, and I'm not sure, you know, one of the things we've seen that I think is pretty productive is having an advisory board that's completely out of the industry. And even if it's only like four people, three or four, I mean five, you get more than about five, that's probably more than necessary. But you know, if regardless of what your business is, you got a dentist, you got a airline pilot, you got a, you know, a drug store manager or something, you know, whatever, just outside of the industry, pay him, you know, 500 bucks a couple times a year to come in and give 'em an update on what's going on and then get some advice from 'em. And you'll make way better decisions from that outside perspective than you do. You know? And so I don't know if it's a consultant or if it's advisory board or if it's an, you know, a a business person that doesn't compete with you close by that are, that are, you know, but, but having some source of external view of what's going on. Because I think what happens too is, is Shea and I talk a lot about, with our clients, about every business has a strategic resource team to manage stress and manage growth, which is your attorney, your CPA, your insurance agent, your lender, your financial planner.

Chris Barron [00:31:33] But a lot of times what happens is they're all in their own little world. So when as a business person, you go to the legal advice, you're gonna get legal advice that might interfere with your tax planning. You go to your tax planner, you might have some tax planning dis discussions that might interfere with the banking and, and the legal or whatever. And each one of 'em where the insurance interferes with some of the legal stuff. And so that's where I guess we've found really good job security in helping people be that strategic planner. So that's the one thing that I think misses is missing in a lot of businesses when, especially when they get into a stress situation, is do they have somebody that's the conduit within the business that helps bring those voices together. So somebody that can talk to them, but look at stuff from a 30,000 foot view and make sure that, that there's continuity between all of those different resource team members. And I think AI is changing some things there a little bit too, because you can dump all that stuff in AI and get some really good perspective too. So that's, that's changing the world as well.

Vance Crowe [00:32:43] You know, one of the things, and I know this is true of your business 'cause we interact with with her all the time, but having a person on your team that coordinates everyone together is one of the most powerful things I've ever seen in business. I've started to take it on myself. I have a, a team member now that coordinates like how are we meeting with the people we need to meet to when are we doing it? How is all the, because one of the things that I've come to realize, I think you mentioned ai, that's gonna be the, the big game changer in the world is most office work. This is not true if you're out in the field, if you're fixing combines, if you're out planting, but most office work really comes down to four things. You copy paste, you search and you schedule. And that's just spent all your time doing that. And if you're trying to get other work done of the, that is actually the business, it's so hard to do. And AI is making this better, but people make it better. And to me, one of the core additions to my business that has really helped me out has been having somebody coordinate how ideas and people come together. Timelines.

Chris Barron [00:33:48] Yeah. I think that's huge. Basically. I mean there, there's a couple different ways you could call that role, but it, it, it's basically the business coordinator in our peg view solutions side of it. It's, it's my wife Alyssa, and she makes everything happen. I mean, you know, you gotta ask yourself as the business owner, how much time do you spend doing the $30 an hour jobs versus the, you know, a thousand dollars an hour jobs? And it's not that the $30 an hour jobs aren't important, that's what makes it so you can do the thousand dollars an hour jobs. It's kinda like, I I correlate it to like nascar. I mean the, the driver gets all the credit, the people that make it happen or the pit crew, if you don't bring that car in and send it right back out in front of some other cars, you, you're probably not gonna win the race. And it's the same thing in business is, you know, what's what, who's coordinating everything and it's the crew chief right? On the NASCAR side, well who's the crew chief in your business? And if you're the crew chief, you gotta ask yourself who's doing all the other stuff because you know, you know, and in every business too, people, people gravitate to what you like to do. And so like in, in farming, what happens a lot of times is farmers will go to the shop, they'll go to the tractor, they'll go to the stuff they like, that's why they farm. Or they'll go out in the field and mess around in the dirt and look at the plants and stuff and or take care of the cattle or whatever. And then they don't go to the office and do their financials because that's not as much fun.

Chris Barron [00:35:22] Well if you're not gonna do that, then hire somebody to do that stuff. It's an investment in the business back to like what I said earlier. But I, I see that in some other industries too. We see that in construction and, and trucking and some stuff too. Some other industries we've had had to get the opportunity to dabble in as well. And the same thing happens there, it looks to me like too where, you know, the business owner kind of does what they wanna do, which is good, but then you sure as heck better be hiring somebody to do that other stuff. And and back to what you said, that business manager of that coordinator, when Alyssa, she was an ICU nurse for 17 years and she started to realize that I was like going all over the place and not being very efficient and very effective. I felt like I was really good with content and helping people. 'cause that's just what I like to do, is I like helping people and understanding their situation. But you know, if I gotta plan my flights and I gotta plan where I'm going and I gotta figure out what I'm gonna charge 'em and all that kinda stuff, I don't want to do that. I, what I'm good at doing is understanding people's situations, understanding their, their needs and helping 'em put together a strategic plan to, to accomplish what their goals are. And as soon as she came in and all I had to do is worry about content, our business took off and I started doing a way better job. I feel bad for some of the consulting and some of the help I did with people

Vance Crowe [00:36:49] Before

Chris Barron [00:36:50] Was here because I, I, I probably did a half-ass job some of the time in fairness because I was worried about my flights. I was worried about all this other crap that I shouldn't have to think about. I mean, when I land in Chicago to catch another flight, I look at my cell phone and it says go to gate G four. I mean, I don't even, I don't even think about, you know, if a if, and then it might say gate change, go to gate a six. Oh that's great. I could walk way across the airport again now, but I don't even have to think about that stuff.

Vance Crowe [00:37:19] The the big challenge though is finding the right person and then getting them into a place Yeah. Where they can do those things. And those two, like I, I know how it is, like when I was starting my business, you look at the expense of well I could pay somebody to do this, but it's really not that much work. I'm just gonna do it myself. And you, you have to do that to some extent. But then once you grow out of it, you gotta know like pull that cord. It may cost you money in the short run, but over the long term you're gonna get to do the a thousand dollars an hour work.

Chris Barron [00:37:51] Right. And I think, you know, we were talking about AI a minute ago and I think AI is gonna help some of that stuff. But one of the things I've learned in, in some of these stress, you know, back to the stress situations in business, AI helps us get really good data, like really fast and, and some pretty good stuff. I think though what happens is the human element needs to come in when it's decision making time then okay, what do we do with this? You know, and the AI can even give you a perspective on it, but the human element I think's always still gonna be there from the perspective of, you know, because you can, like I said, you can take whatever AI says or whatever an attorney says or a CPA and you can give it, give that that attorney's information to five other attorneys and you're gonna get five other, you know, ideas of what you should do. So I think, you know, as business people, we need to be accountable for our own decision making I guess is the point I'm trying to get to. I see this in, in brokerage firms a lot. Like in in commodity trading and stuff. I'll hear occasionally not picking on farmers, but I'm gonna, because I am one, you know, they'll, they'll bitch about, well this guy made me, you know, I I screwed up my marketing this year because I was listening to, to what he said, well it's not his fault. You're the one that made the decision. You know, so it's not AI's fault, it's not that that person's fault. All that is is information and perspective as business people, we need to be make sure we're, you know, taking the extreme ownership of our own decisions and being accountable for 'em and not blaming somebody else or blaming, you know, it's pretty easy to blame somebody for something that's happened and a lot of times we need to look in the mirror and it's probably us that could have changed the scenario or fixed it.

Chris Barron [00:39:47] So I think when we're in these stressful situations, it's really, really important that we step back whether we're using AI or attorneys or CPAs or whatever it is, or consultants or or advisory boards or brokers, whatever, that we look in the mirror and say, okay, what, what do I need to be accountable for here? What do I need to change and improve and adjust, I think is is one of the best ways to handle these stressful situations. 'cause they'll cycle. We'll be in stressful situations again. We always are and every business cycles. And so I think that's, that's one of the most important things I think we can do.

Vance Crowe [00:40:26] So, you know, I know you're rounding 60, you've been around for a lot of harvests this year on social media. Among

Chris Barron [00:40:35] My,

Vance Crowe [00:40:35] My friends that are in ag there is supposedly more stress than normal diesel prices way up. They're not sure if they're gonna be able to afford the NP and K that they have, the, you know, all of the, the stresses that go on. Is this just the normal bluster that goes on as people are worried about pulling in a harvest? Or is this year special somehow?

Chris Barron [00:40:57] Yeah, at the risk of pissing some people off and that's fine. It's okay. They can send the, I'm mad at Chris to send that to Vance or whatever, but,

Vance Crowe [00:41:07] But

Chris Barron [00:41:07] No, I, to me, I mean I'm honestly not on hardly any social media. My wife gives me a bad time 'cause I watch YouTube shorts and stuff occasionally, but I don't, I don't, I'm not on any of those. I just don't take the time to be. And so, 'cause I, I want my time to be more executive focused and I, I hear enough without hearing more noise. And so what I would say to that is, for example, and I'll get real specific in the weeds here for a second, but yes, fuel prices are significantly higher. The media, which I haven't listened to the media in probably five years now. Any, any big media, I could care less what they say. I mean, if there's a nuclear missile coming this way, I'll probably see it before it hits us or whatever. I mean, what the, the all they do is they hype everything. So they're just getting everybody's blood pressure up. They're trying to get everybody, you know, they're, it's money. Follow the money. They're selling news and people wanna hear about the airplane that almost crashed. Not the one that flew without any flaw. Now

Vance Crowe [00:42:10] Chicago, you

Chris Barron [00:42:11] Know, nobody cares about, you know, everything that went fine. Everybody wants to be in on what's not working and all that. Okay, let's go to the specifics now for a second. On diesel fuel. Diesel fuel is, is up. It's about double it. It is double from where it was this spring. We all had the opportunity. This will really piss some people off. We all had the opportunity to book it, you know, not the, not the people that are the regular consumers, but businesses have had the opportunity to hedge and book and stuff. So that's one. The other thing I would say is grain prices have also gone up significantly more. So diesel has gone up, you know, up to the tune of about three and a half to 4 cents a bushel. And I'm gonna use corn as a specific example, has gone up three to 4 cents a bushel for harvest. It's gone up about 3 cents a bushel for trucking. It's gone up about another three to 4 cents a bushel for tillage, for fall tillage. Okay, so let's, let's say it,

Vance Crowe [00:43:12] It's 10 cents off an acre.

Chris Barron [00:43:13] Yeah. Let's, let's say it's yeah or per bushel, you know, let's just say that, you know, it's costing you 20 cents a bushel will corn has gone up a dollar a bushel. So we have an 80 cent better scenario. I'll take diesel fuel being higher all day long if corn goes up enough more and, and I'm managing a margin. And so that's what we do with farm profit managers. We're constantly managing the margins because I think in, in a lot of businesses, people try to hit the market. Nobody knows, you know, especially in commodities, nobody knows what the market's gonna do. Nobody knows. I don't care. You have the best ai, the best person, the most experienced, the 180 year old that has been around forever and knows, and nobody knows because there's anything that can happen that's gonna change it. But when you know your cost of production, and this is true for any business, if you know what it costs you to produce your product that you're gonna sell and you can sell that product at a price higher than, than what it costs you to produce it, that's called profit. And if you don't take profit or if you're gonna bitch about the, the lower, you know, the input's going up. But if the, if the output has gone up excessively more, and, and I think like as we record this in 2026, late 2026, the other thing that has happened in the agriculture industry right now is people have sold grain at a lower price before the price went up. And so what happens is, I think there's a lot of seller's remorse.

Chris Barron [00:44:46] And when we made the, when we made that sale, we were fine with it. So what is the difference? I mean, I did the same thing. I'm, I'm 75% sold and I would do it all over again. I've got statistical data that shows I've been doing, we've been doing margin management for 30 years, started doing this when I was started helping people when I was 30, 30 years of doing this every single time. If you manage your margin, you will probably stay in business. If you try to guess prices every single time, you're gonna be wrong about 85% of the time because nobody knows where the prices are. So if you're managing the margin, that's, that's where the opportunity's at.

Vance Crowe [00:45:25] So let's talk about Farm Profit Manager because this way that you're thinking about describing the fuel prices relative to the bushels, the, the, the price per bushel. This is news to me. I have not actually ever heard anybody frame it this way. Is that what Farm Profit Manager allows you to do is, is to evaluate these pricing things in, in some different format.

Chris Barron [00:45:49] Well that and about a hundred other things. But you know, thanks to ai, I mean we looked at building this system five years ago, it was gonna be, you know, between five and $7 million to construct what we're currently building now that we'll probably build for 10% of the cost and, and even better with better services and better tools internally with it. But the answer is yes. I mean that's exactly what we do is we make sure that the cost of production is, is dialed in. Exactly. And, and this, this should be happening in every business, right? I mean every business should have a budget that shows exactly all of their line item categories of expense. Once you know what those are, then you can, you know, and especially if you get some trend, you get a year or two in, you can start looking at certain things. Are they staying in line? Are they getting outta line? Diesel fuels outta line, but the input side is outta line to the positive. So, and and yeah, and we've had some stressful times. I mean we've seen our average client burn through working capital. My my own family operations burn through a ton of working capital last couple of years because of where margin per the, where the margin was. We, we couldn't wait to sell at a profit. We had to sell at the lowest loss we could. It is a different way to think, right? And, and people not in agriculture be like, well that sounds fun. I don't think I'd ever wanna do that. Well that's why, that's why 1% of the population's producing food Hot for everybody, you know? And, and, and so yeah, we we have years.

Chris Barron [00:47:20] I mean, I know, well a couple years ago I got some phone calls from some young producers that had been only farming for about five years, had never lost money. I remember I getting a call from a young producer, really sharp, sharp young guy in Nebraska. He called me. He is like, man, I don't know, this is terrible. I'm gonna, I'm gonna lose like a half a million dollars this year. And I listened to him, you know, and his concern and everything and I was trying to be as, as much, give him as much grace as I could, but I couldn't help but say welcome to farming. You know, I, I said, you're not gonna make money every year. There's gonna, there's gonna be a couple years out of every 10 that you're gonna lose money. There's gonna be several years that you're gonna break even. There's gonna be one maybe that you make a little bit of money, there's gonna be about two that you're gonna make a bunch of money. So you have to manage around that cycle. So welcome to farming. You know, and that's, and I, I was a little more gracious when I had that conversation with him, but that's just the way the cycle of, of the ag business works. And you know, and, and, and a lot of other businesses are that way too. I mean, you know, you know, it's there, there's,

Vance Crowe [00:48:30] Well, I'll give you an example. My, my wife's business, physical therapy, she was like, we now have enough data. We've been doing this for long enough that we can tell that unless there are three consecutive sunny days in a row, people stop calling us. And I was like, whatcha talking about? And he was like, well, if people aren't out jogging then they don't get knee injuries. If they don't get knee injuries, they don't come in and see us. And so you have these like boom times where, you know, weather is good, people getting injured cold times, things go out. And how you weather those ups and downs that you cannot predict is the determiner as to whether or not you survive in a lot of cases.

Chris Barron [00:49:07] I got a business idea for you. You need to have her collaborate with a psych psychological firm that works on the psychology side. 'cause if you get those three cloudy days, you're gonna have some people depressed

Vance Crowe [00:49:18] And, but you, you can, you

Chris Barron [00:49:19] Know, you can collaborate and make sure that you're diversified enough that you're getting revenue coming in. And, and, but I, I say that jokingly, but that's, that's the,

Vance Crowe [00:49:28] That's the business mind.

Chris Barron [00:49:29] Yeah. Yeah. It's like, okay, 'cause diversification got removed from agriculture back in the, it was kind of happened through the eighties. We had some pretty tough economic times in that window, but diversification kind of went away to where, you know, you're specializing and now we're starting to learn that, you know, hey, maybe the, a little bit of diversification's a good thing be. But you know, it used to be ag you know, you had five or six different things you were diversified in. It looks to me like kind of the sweet spots, two or three businesses that, that you know, are

Vance Crowe [00:50:03] Oh, two or three businesses. You're not saying plant corn, beans and wheat, you're saying have a trucking business, a

Chris Barron [00:50:10] Grain

Vance Crowe [00:50:11] Merchandising business and a seed business. Yeah.

Chris Barron [00:50:13] Own 15 dairy queens or Yeah. Something that's, that's, that's different that will offset, you know, that diversification I think is a huge thing. And, and I don't care what industry you're in, I think just like the example I gave you for your wife, you know, I would, I'd be like, okay, what can we do when that goes down for something to go up it, it's the same thing we see with Farm Profit Manager. I was telling the, the team the other day that it's gonna get really busy right after harvest. And because the margins are perceived to be tight, even though they're not right now, because we've come, we're coming off of two to three years of economic losses. So people are still really motivated to figure out what their cost of production is. The minute we get really high prices for an extended period of time, it takes about six to eight months. All of a sudden, nobody gives a shit about what their cost of production is because all they gotta do is wake up and they're making money.

Vance Crowe [00:51:12] Right.

Chris Barron [00:51:13] And so, and it, and it,

Vance Crowe [00:51:15] I resonate with this so hard. I know exactly what this is like. Yeah.

Chris Barron [00:51:18] And so that's what happens in every other business too. You know, just like your wife's deal, you know, if why they, if they're not out doing something that's gonna create business for then that the business goes down. And so you can almost predict if, and that's where the data becomes so, so important, is so you can, you can do predictive analysis and that's what we do with Farm Profit Manager. Right. I always tell people accounting because it, it, it doesn't have to be farm profit manager. This is true for every business, but in accounting that data is postmortem. It's already happened. If you're making decisions, if you're taking the cash flow from the previous year and pushing that forward and saying, this is what my cash flow is gonna look like in the year ahead, you're driving your car down the road just using the rear view mirrors and not looking out the windshield. And I'm pretty sure you're not gonna get very far down the road. Try it sometime. You will not go very far. You'll be in the ditch within about 300 feet. And that's what happens. Lot of businesses,

Vance Crowe [00:52:17] You know, I think one of the reasons you, you mentioned this earlier about how people end up doing the work that they like doing and they go towards it. And I think with things like finance for example, or, or keeping your cash flow, the challenge for a lot of doers is that they look at a combine and they're like, it's broken. I'm gonna know when it's done and that's gonna be when it's running again. Right? So I have a clear start and end time, and I know the steps of what I have to do to figure out how to solve this problem. And things like getting your books up to order. If you are not a a money person, this becomes like, how am I gonna do this? I don't know what to do. I know for me, procrastination happens when I don't know what the next step is. And, and the, the crazy thing that I've discovered is that AI allows me to overcome that, that that stillness before you take a step where you're like, what should I do first? And I think that this is enabling people like me that would rather be doing extroverted things To focus on, on money in a way that it was out of my reach before. It was just, it was something that required too much cognitive energy for me to be able to do regularly. And now I'm on top of it. AI is amazing in this way.

Chris Barron [00:53:26] Yeah. And and you're able to look at reports instead of doing, instead of generating the reports.

Vance Crowe [00:53:33] Oh yeah. I mean I have, you know, you've gotta get receipts, you've gotta do the transactions and make sure everything's matching expenses. And now AI does it better than me. Right. And so now I'm sitting there thinking about the information coming out of those reports as opposed to all of the work I have to do to make sure that I can pay my taxes. Yeah. Which is really the only reason I did my books before. I was like, I'll just keep making money, I'll pay my taxes and then we'll figure out what profit is in the future. Well, AI makes it so you can do exactly what you're talking about. Cash flow analysis, things like that.

Chris Barron [00:54:03] One, one thing that that farm Profit manager does, and, and, and if you're in any other business, I think you need some type of a system that does this for you, is looking at the accrual set of books though. 'cause you know, you talk about the tax books, but in a lot of businesses, especially if you're, you're creating some things that you're marketing and you have inventory, or as you build assets, you know, let's say that, you know, your, your business continues to grow. You hire five more people and you build, you build some brick and mortar, so you've got more facilities and now all of a sudden you've got these investments and stuff. But what's the, you know, so now you're depreciating the building, but the building's actually, from a tax standpoint, it's depreciating. But from a realistic perspective, it's probably appreciating. And so what we like to look at and spend the majority of our time is the textbooks really in my opinion, are just a necessary evil and a, a thing to tolerate. But I wanna look, you know, and especially like in agriculture or construction, those types of businesses where you create inventory, I think it's super important to make sure you, you're running that set of books and you're looking at that accrual perspective. And that's so, so important because if you're, if you're just going off the textbooks at the end of the year, it's again, you're looking at, you're trying to drive down the road with the rear view mirror.

Vance Crowe [00:55:26] Well it was totally game changing for me to use AI and to finally be able to get out of that hook. I'm, I'm completely with you. When all of a sudden you can start saying like, oh wait a second. Although it looks like we have a bunch of money in the bank, our cash flow, like we're gonna need to, you know, shore things up. You're gonna be able to need to make decisions. And I just wasn't doing that before. Yeah,

Chris Barron [00:55:46] Right.

Vance Crowe [00:55:46] And so you just white knuckle it. And I think there are a lot of people that are like that. They're excellent technicians that are great at what they do, but the, this part of it was so hard that now having tools like for profit manager or just general AI is gonna make it so people, people can expand their skill sets beyond what their intellect maybe would let them.

Chris Barron [00:56:07] Yeah, for sure. One, one other thing I want to hit on real quick is, you know, when you talk about stressful situations and managing those in business, and this is something that I was kind of waiting to bring up as we've had conversation here, but it's called time tracking. And any business, I don't care if it's what you're doing Vance or if it's, you know, a farm operation or if it's a, if it's a, you know, a legal firm, whatever, you know, and the legal, legal firms do a good job at tracking time 'cause they're gonna bill out by the minute or whatever. But I think it's so important because if you don't track time in your business to see where your time is being spent, I can sit here and say, are you doing the $30 an hour jobs or the a thousand dollars? You don't know. You have no clue. You have a perspective. I have a perspective and somewhere in the middle or the facts. Facts. So when I tell operations, when we start working with them, you know, I'm like, okay, number one thing we gotta do here is track time. And they'll, oh my god, that's, I'm not doing that. You know? No. Okay then you know what, what is the most expensive part of doing business? One thing you can do is you can make more money, but pretty sure you're not gonna make more time. So if you don't measure it, you will never be able to improve your time management. And it takes a massive amount of discipline. But we've done it in our, in our farm operation now for about six years. And the data that has come out of that cumulatively is massive with respect to if I gotta hire somebody or if I gotta replace a division of the business, I can look at that and say, well it takes a thousand hours in the shop in the spring and, and 800 hours in the fall and this person's leaving, I need 1800 hours.

Chris Barron [00:57:53] I gotta figure this. You know, so I all of a sudden, you know, or I can say, you know, it took us 4,300 hours to put the crop in and take it out, or it took this many hours in the shop and I gotta pay John Deere $200 an hour and we're doing the same thing for you know, $60 an hour. Here's the economic benefit. And I can calculate things instantaneously by virtue of having that time tracking. And I don't care again what the business is. How much time are you spending? You know, we work with a lot of seed companies and those types of things and they don't farm, but they have maybe eight or 10 primary roles that they do. And administrative is one of the big ones that people don't track the time on their administrative time. And then they could say, okay, well I hate that part of it but I'm spending 20% of my time doing administrative and I suck at it. Well then maybe you need to figure out how to get a part-time person doing that administrative stuff so you can make more money doing the stuff that you like doing. And, but you can't do that until you track the time to have a measure.

Vance Crowe [00:58:57] So practically how do you, how do you track time?

Chris Barron [00:59:00] So we use QuickBooks Workforce, which is a really good one, especially if companies are already using QuickBooks. So it's not a commercial for them, it's just one that I see that works really good and there's about 10 other ones and you can have AI build you on too. Now I played with that just to see if it could do it and it can do it really well and fast. And, and then you just create categories, you know, so like for your business it's like, you know, how much time are you spending doing classes versus traveling versus you know, podcast

Vance Crowe [00:59:33] Versus bookkeeping versus email versus right. And

Chris Barron [00:59:36] So, but you gotta be careful not to create like 15 categories. You wanna start out with maybe five or six categories and just track those categories and what happens and why people get discouraged and stop doing it is because if somebody like you, you know, you might do all five categories in one day, right? And so it's like, well I gotta remember to switch that every time I, you know, and then the phone rings and then I gotta do this. And you know, so what I tell people is, if you are the executive of the business, if you're the primary owner or the primary executive, you basically put your time in. At the end of the day, you're gonna have a pretty good idea. You know, I spent 80% of my day doing some administrative stuff today and the other 20% was doing this X, Y, and Z. And I learned that from my nephew because I was like very adamant that when we started it, everybody needed to clock in and clock out. And you know, he came to me one day, he is like, you know, dude, this is fine and everything, but he is like, I'm doing 10 different things every day all day long 'cause I'm the one that has to float. And he's like, I'm not clocking in and I'm so, and I'm like, well what's the solution? He is like, I'll do it at the end of the day because I'm gonna know exactly at the end of the day really close. And so it's not perfect, but it's damn close. And for a lot of your employees it is gonna be perfect 'cause they might only be in two of the categories or something. And especially when you have multiple businesses, when your wife gets connected with this other business that I, I'm promoting that she does, You know, you might have employees that go back and forth from one business to the other.

Chris Barron [01:01:10] And so they, you can figure out both within your, within your diversification, how much time's being spent in this business versus this business when you have people going back and forth. So we have the same thing with ag View solutions and for profit managers a separate company now. So we gotta, we gotta track our time between the two so we know what the resources that are gonna be needed for in each one. So I think that's a really good way to eliminate stress and especially if you have family members that work together. If you have two brothers that farm together and they're married, the wives are gonna have different perspectives on who works the hardest. And so I think that's really key thing too. You know, you can, you can be pissed at each other or you can have data, you know, you can either be informed or you can be happy or unhappy, whichever it is. But being informed and having the data is super powerful.

Vance Crowe [01:02:01] So one of the reasons you and I have had a chance to talk so much is 'cause we have a conference you guys are putting on a conference. I've been invited to it. I wanna talk a little bit about this 'cause there is still a little bit of time for people to sign up. It's January 20th through the 22nd down in Hollywood Beach, Florida. What happens at this conference? And is it only for people that are already a part of Ag View solutions?

Chris Barron [01:02:26] No, it's, it's open for anybody. The the inter interesting thing is, is it, it's a an executive business for, for a lot of, a lot of ag businesses, but we've had a lot of bankers show up. We've had some attorneys, we've had, you know, different people like that show up. It's not just farmers, it's others. We've had a numerous amount of other businesses show up because all we talk about are business topics. Now it has an ag flavor because we do dive into marketing and some of that stuff. And the majority of the, the business people there are farm operations and, and and ag businesses. A lot of different agricultural businesses. So, but yeah, we, we love it and we have people like you that are there. The difference between our event and, you know, a typical conference is there's some advertising there. We really don't do any advertising and we've got two great sponsors, pioneer Hybrid and Cargill, and they show up with a couple of executives and they float the whole time and interact with the people. But they don't, they don't have any booths. We're not selling anything. They're not selling anything. It's a, it's been a great way to, to do it. This is our sixth annual and I tell people that if you go to this, I guarantee it'll be the best business conference you've ever attended. And you went last year and I think you were surprised because of it's the people that are there. That's the difference. And we, and we lock it at 150.

Chris Barron [01:03:57] As soon as there's 150 people registered, we close registration because it's not about getting a whole bunch of people there. It's about having the right people there.

Vance Crowe [01:04:06] Oh, I, I mean I, the, the reason my whole relationship with you guys changed after going to this conference because it opened my eyes to this is the way that everybody that imagines, they're going to a business conference or they're going away to something. This is what they imagine all the, the people that live somewhere that get to do all the great things go to because it was bang, bang, bang. Every single presenter had ideas that mattered. To your point, I actually had always thought of it as an ag conference, but you're right, it is an executive conference. It was about how do you resolve these problems? How are you bringing this up, what are you responsible for? How are you managing? And it was just a massive amount of energy coming from the stage. But then you would break out and the group, whatever table you were sitting at, you'd be like, where did you people come from? Like, this is really sophisticated conversation. Yeah. And I walked outta that being like, whatever you guys are doing, I wanna be as close as possible to you and Shea.

Chris Barron [01:05:02] Yeah, well we're really blessed to, you know, when, when, I mean it was actually Alyssa's idea, so I gave her credit, but she's like, there's all these conferences in a lot of businesses that you know, that the, the conference is held by virtue of trying to be as profitable as they can having the conference. So you bring in as many companies so they gotta pay or whatever. Our philosophy was purely education. It's not a money making event. It's a, it's an educational opportunity for 150 people that sign up first. We're about halfway there I think now the registration I think opened on the 8th of September and it closes around I think the end of November and it'll be full, it's usually full before that. I mean, we'll see, I mean every year's a little different, but it definitely fills up. And then what I hate the most is when somebody signs up and there's our, or tries to sign up 'cause we close it 150, then we start getting phone calls and that's when Alyssa's like you, this is your part. I'm like, oh thanks, you know, I get

Vance Crowe [01:06:08] You sign

Chris Barron [01:06:08] Up for next year. You know, and that's what I hate is, but we have to do that because, you know, you could have 800 people in the room and not get the same environment that we get with 150. We make everybody, and you saw this and you were part of it, but we, we set everybody at a table and we make sure they don't know each other and they're gonna get to know each other and they're gonna communicate with each other and they're gonna solve some problems. We give them usually about five problems to solve. We do it right before lunch and we typically, you know, we usually schedule an hour and a half and we're usually have to kick tables out. I think you saw that too. We usually gotta, you guys gotta go eat 'cause we're starting at one o'clock again and, and they, they build this, this little network of affection with each other really quick. And it, it's this really cool experience for sure.

Vance Crowe [01:06:56] Yeah, I mean I have been to hundreds and hundreds of conferences and this one is unlike any I've ever been to. And I'm, I'm really glad to hear you say that it's an executive conference because I think that this is one of those places where you go and you hear ideas like that, like your PT example. Yeah. Right, where all of a sudden you're thinking about things outside the box, you're thinking, oh, well if they can't be out running, maybe they should be getting therapy and, and on and on and on. The creativity is boundless. So if people did want to learn more, where should they go? Chris,

Chris Barron [01:07:25] Just go to, to, the easiest way is just go to ag view solutions.com and then just click on the conference tab that's right at the top. Pretty easy to see there, but it's the Ag View executive business conference. You type that in or even say that into ai, it'll find it for you instantly. So, so, but yeah, and I also was just gonna throw out there, last year we had a, a 75-year-old who is still a active dentist and he has seven dentistries. He is actually got six, he was building a seventh one and he went from being just a dentist to now he owns seven Dentistries and is, you know, just a huge entrepreneurial thinker. And he, he had called me and, and said, you know, this is the best conference I've ever been to, you know, and so if a dentist comes that you know that, that's not a farmer and got that much out of it, I think that says something for it too, which was kind of cool.

Vance Crowe [01:08:18] I'm, I'm, I'm not surprised at all. Well Chris, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for coming on and good luck with Harvest. You got coming up here.

Chris Barron [01:08:27] Yeah, we've had a lot of, as we, as we record here now, I think we've, we've had the 40 days and 40 nights of rain, so we didn't have to build quite, build

Vance Crowe [01:08:35] An arc, but it

Chris Barron [01:08:36] Feels like we almost needed one for a while. So hopefully we can get, get rolling here eventually.

Vance Crowe [01:08:41] Well maybe you can get a little, a little combine barge going up there. Yeah, yeah. I hope

Chris Barron [01:08:46] That's not the case,

Vance Crowe [01:08:47] So we'll

Chris Barron [01:08:48] See.

Vance Crowe [01:08:48] Alright, thanks so much, Chris. Yeah, thanks Vance. Alright, that's gonna do it for this week's episode. If you've been thinking about doing the interest based communications class, we do have a course coming up November 9th through the 11th here in St. Louis, Missouri. We have a couple of seats open and we would love to host you to learn more, go to Articulate Ventures slash IB seat. All right. We'll be back next week with another engaging show.

Chris Barron [01:09:20] Really, it doesn't matter if you're telling a story at the family reunion or telling a story to your kids at night or telling a story to your manager who can unlock resources for you to do something. It all needs to be a good compelling story. You go into the course thinking that maybe you're a good communicator or thinking that you're a good storyteller, and then you actually get to practice that and realize maybe, maybe I am not as good of a storyteller as I thought, or, or maybe it's just something I need to, you know, sharpen up and practice. This course was great to go through because it reminded me that I do have that muscle memory. I just need to put in the reps. I just need to pick up the weights again and keep building because I do have it within me to tell better stories. I do have it within me to ask better questions, and I think I've gotten lazy. You know, it's easier to get frustrated with people and just be like, they don't understand versus like, instead of getting frustrated, getting curious, Interest-Based Communication, learn more at Articulate Ventures slash IBC.