Why Selling at the Right Time Still Feels Wrong | Ryan Denis

Ryan Denis [00:00:00] I learned, you know, that when you leave a, a big organization with a lot of, a lot of muscle and offices filled with lawyers, that you, you learn some life lessons along the way, but I'm, I'm happy I did. I I got to experience something in life that maybe not everyone gets to and I, I got to, you know, kinda stand up for myself and, and get after it from a, a, you know, a business owner perspective.

Vance Crowe [00:00:27] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here today. Ryan Denny, a Saskatchewan Farm kid turned grain buyer who founded his own crop marketing company and now hosts What The Futures, a weekly podcast for Western Canadian farmers who want straight talk on how to sell their grain. Now, you might be not involved in farming at all, or not in involved in markets, but this is a pretty fun conversation because we're talking about the psychology, watching prices go up and then watch them collapse, when to do things, what's going on when you're trying to make these choices. Ryan is a fascinating guy and he has a conference coming up that I'm gonna be a speaker at. We're gonna get to that interview in just a moment. But I wanted to mention that I am publishing a book, social Heuristics, a Negotiation and Communication Skills for Highly Logical People. I'm planning on trying to publish this book in the fall of 27, and I've been asking people if you want to help me edit this book. I've been sending out excerpts of the book in order to get some feedback about how the pages are written, how the story is structured, what could make this better, and I've been getting great input.

Vance Crowe [00:01:33] If you'd like to help me out, go to Articulate Ventures slash book to download the first chapter in the book and gimme some feedback. Alright, let's head to this interview with Ryan Deni. Ryan Dennis, welcome to the podcast.

Ryan Denis [00:01:48] Hey, thanks for having me, Vance. Appreciate it.

Vance Crowe [00:01:52] So when I think of Canadian farmers and grain prices and all the things that are going on up there, I think of my good friend Jay, who told me that as prices were going up, he got really excited and decided not to get greedy. So he locked in prices and then the price of grain just kept going up and up and up. And he starts having a crisis in his mind, like, oh no, look at all the money I left on the table, and then the price collapses, and now he's feeling like I'm king of the world because I locked it in at that higher price. What in the world is going on with people right now that they're, how do you handle these crazy swings and, and putting up numbers to make sure your farm can survive?

Ryan Denis [00:02:33] Well, Vance, that is, that is 2026 in a nutshell here for, for farmers. And I actually, I had back in the spring, the price of, I'll use canola for, for now, but it doesn't matter. You can throw corn in the mix here, beans it all, it wheat, it all matters. It all did a similar thing, but farmers locked in some $14 canola, that's price per bushel in Western Canada and a price that nobody had seen for a couple years.

Ryan Denis [00:03:06] And then it went to 60 15, 16, 17, $18 a bushel. And when it got to that 17, $18 level, the sadness out there, the frustration from farmers was unbelievable. It's like somebody ran over the farm dog as prices were climbing, it was like somebody ran over the farm dog. And I was like, what is happening here guys, this is a good thing. But you go back to those first sales, I did 'em too, right? We all did them. We hadn't seen them for a while and it didn't feel very good as prices went higher and higher and higher, especially when it was such an expensive crop to, to grow, to raise and you needed, you need every dollar that you can get.

Vance Crowe [00:03:52] The hard part about doing any kind of sales. So my, my father was a small town stockbroker and I just learned, you know, when you'd ask dad, Hey dad, how'd the market do today? And my dad would say, well, the market did what the market does, it goes up and then it goes down. And he, we had very much like a, you just lock in a price and you don't look back and you never regret it. But my wife is not the same way. You know, if she sees that we locked in a price on a stock sale and somehow it goes up, I mean, she, she's like, feels so much regret and I just don't feel it. I'm like, a walk, walk away. Is, is this just genetic, is this just what people have when on how they feel about these things?

Ryan Denis [00:04:30] Well, like emotion is, is like, if you could figure out how to control your emotions during the swing of, of these market prices.

Ryan Denis [00:04:39] Like even now, you know, farmers reach out to me and now they're, they're angry, you know, they're angry and they're frustrated. Why didn't I do more at the highs? Like what was holding me back? And, you know, maybe we'll tackle that a little bit later on. But emotions, they basically kind of conquer and lead our decisions here. We get frustrated, we get, or we get tired of the decision, frustrated with the decision. We maybe just say, okay, let's call it a day. I'm, I don't wanna look at this anymore. You know, that happens. You, you've got, you know, this pressure and, and the anxiety about having to make the right call at the, at the right time coming out of these bearish markets. Like there's that too, like emotion is basically the, the biggest part of this. If, if farmers could spend their time, you know, figuring out how to navigate and make decisions in stressful situations, that crop marketing would be just that much easier for them moving, moving past that. If you could tackle emotion, the rest of it almost doesn't matter. It does, but it, it plays a huge part. And back in my grain buying days, the the busiest days you had were in the selloffs. You know, when, when you're sitting here thinking it's so quiet, the prices are climbing, it's so quiet and now it's coming under pressure, it's starting to sell off aggressively and the phone was ringing people dumping and, and not when you should be vans, you know?

Vance Crowe [00:06:19] So why don't, for the audience's sake, why don't we give a little bit of a history on how you became somebody to talk to grain prices about and marketing and all this. What's your history, Ryan?

Ryan Denis [00:06:29] Yeah, well, you know, I've, I'm a a farm, farm raised guy from, from Saskatchewan. And my dad and my brother crop 10,000 acres today. They just wrapped up harvest here a couple weeks ago now. So we're, it's good. It, it's a good one to put behind us 'cause it was a challenging year, but basically I kind of stumbled into this world. I, I basically, I, I got a job as a grain buyer for a couple of years and I was commuting just a crazy amount of time. I thought, I need to find a job that's a little bit closer to home so everybody knows Cargill, right? I, I applied to a, a job at Cargill, which was just down the road from where I lived. And when I went in there, they said, Hey Ryan, you know, welcome to the interview. You applied for job, you know, this job as a sales rep to sell certain and chem, but instead we're doing this grain marketing advisor program and we'd like you to consider that with your grain buying background in history, would you consider taking on this advisor type role and working with farmers to help them market their, their crops. And I was like, I didn't even know this existed. I'm like, sure, I'll give that a go. And then of course the, the Canadian Wheat Board is dissolved right at that time, right?

Ryan Denis [00:07:51] That I think that maybe the year prior, but right at that time. And so we had farmers

Vance Crowe [00:07:56] Wait, wait, wait, what does the Canadian Wheat Board even do?

Ryan Denis [00:07:59] So the Canadian Wheat Board was basically, I probably should have researched this a little bit more here before our talk, but basically farmers would, it was a, like a monopoly. Farmers would sign up their bushels of, of grain of, pardon me, of wheat. And the Canadian Wheat Board would market it. They controlled marketing that Canadian wheat to the world. And so what would happen is you would harvest, you'd say, I'm gonna do a thousand acres of wheat, and then you would harvest that, you'd fill out a, a, a report saying how many bushels you had. You would get it graded from the different elevators. And then the Canadian Wheat Board would say, good morning farmers, you can now haul deliver 10% of your contracted bushels. And, and there was a, a, a price kind of guide and they'd say, once you deliver this, we're going to give you a portion of that money, an initial price. If your wheat is worth $8, we're going to give you $4 today. You say, okay, so you'd haul your 20% or whatever the allocation was, and then you'd wait and everybody, all your neighbors, everybody would've to haul. And then once everyone got to their allocation, they'd say, alright, farmers, welcome to the next month here you are now gonna be able to haul 10% of your wheat. And then you'd haul that in, get your initial price, and then you'd wait for payments.

Ryan Denis [00:09:26] You'd wait for additional payments you didn't know when they were coming. And sometimes it would take 18 months for a payment to, to arrive a final payment. And so you'd just wait. Then you'd wait and you'd wait. The Canadian Wheat Board was out there globally doing its thing, marketing your wheat for you. And you were just stuck in this system of, of waiting for payment, waiting to haul. And then every once in a while they'd say, well, you know what? We didn't actually sell all the wheat this year, so we're gonna ask you to hold 10 or 20% into next year. Everybody okay with that? And that's what would happen. So when I first started,

Vance Crowe [00:10:04] you communist what in the world is

Ryan Denis [00:10:07] Yeah, man, like, it, like my first days buying grain, I'm, we get these like permit books that I'm handwriting this stuff out and it's like, what is this? Right? This is crazy to me. And and so you didn't have control as a farmer, you didn't have control at all, which was, you know, easy I suppose, but not, not how it should be. Right? Like if you could market other, your specialty crops, pulses, feed, grains, canola. But when it came to wheat, yeah. And we'd have this agent right, would drive around and he'd, he had to stop and see us at the elevator and hear our concerns or our complaints of the, of the week, I suppose.

Ryan Denis [00:10:58] But controlled the destiny of, of those wheat deliveries for those farmers and all sorts of games would get played, all sorts of politics involved. It was messy and, and honestly trying to run a business like I couldn't imagine in 2026 being stuck to that. I couldn't like, it's too, it's too risky. The margins are too thin having to wait for your payments.

Vance Crowe [00:11:28] Yeah, I just finished the first draft of my book on communications for highly logical people and between now and publication, I'm sharing ideas from it here. This is one about the feedback nobody gives you. Most of us wonder whether people notice the things we're insecure about. We rarely find out the people closest to us don't wanna hurt our feelings. And often the only people willing to give us negative feedback are people that actually dislike us. When I was in graduate school, my 90-year-old mentor Pete called me at 9:30 AM on a Sunday morning after I had been visiting with him the day before. Pete said, Vance, I've been looking over my notes from last night and I had three things I wanted to talk with you about. First you showed up dressed inappropriately. I was planning to go to dinner, but the way you were dressed, we couldn't go next. He asked me some details about something I'd read to him in the news and he wanted to know a little bit more about what I was saying. And then he got to his third point, Vance, have you been putting on weight? When we hung up the phone, I could have just sat down and cried.

Vance Crowe [00:12:33] Not because I was ashamed or anything hurtful, but because this was one of the first times somebody cared enough about me to tell the truth. So I wasn't wondering if other people were noticing what I'd been avoiding seeing for myself. I got the truth and it was what I needed to make the change in my life. Over time, I saw that Pete was able to deliver this kind of feedback to many people saying things directly really strongly and yet still being adored. Years later I asked Pete how he gave me feedback like that and really anybody without hurting their feelings, he said, you know, before I give feedback, I ask myself two questions. Would he wanna know and am I the guy to tell him, I call it the Pete Candor test Feedback only lands if the person wants it. So before you give feedback, positive or negative, you've gotta ask yourself, would they want to know this? And am I the one to tell them? If both answers are yes, then it probably will really help them and ultimately build your relationship. The Pete Candor test is one of the social heuristics I teach in my interest based communications course. You can learn more by visiting Articulate Ventures slash book. So this gets upended and now companies were then scrambling to say, Hey, how are we gonna help farmers go ahead and market their own wheat? Yeah. Oh, that had to be a wild scramble because this is a business in and of itself. It's not just growing the grain.

Ryan Denis [00:14:05] Yeah. So there, there was definitely advisor type services before and they would help you with some of your other crops, not so much on your wheat. But once, once the Canadian Wheat Board was abolished, then farmers were sitting there saying, I farm my entire career. And I haven't, I haven't marketed any, any wheat myself and like in Canada for, for wheat grading, the grading system is, is quite complex and there's protein spreads, there's gains, positives and negatives to that, right? Discounts of premiums. There's different quality grains as well. There's, there's lots that goes into it. Falling number is a big one now. There's a lot that goes into it. And farmers were like, I've never done this. I've farmed for 40 years. I've, I haven't done this before. I need some help.

Vance Crowe [00:14:59] And so then when you took on this role at Cargill, This, you Went through a training program, what did, how did you Get strapped In and ready to go?

Ryan Denis [00:15:07] Well, yeah, it's, I suppose, you know, there's a little bit of a, a training program, but I went, Vince, I went to my first client. 'cause of course I had bought grain in the region for two years prior, so I knew a bunch of farmers and that's why they hired me. They're like, this guy knows a bunch of farmers, he is gonna go and, and pitch them, right? And I went to my first farmer, Raymond Shandro, and I said, Raymond, we've had a great couple years together with lots of great discussions about markets and I have no idea what I'm doing, but I would like to charge you $10,000 and we could learn together.

Ryan Denis [00:15:46] And Raymond was like, let's do it a hundred percent, let's get after it. So I'm not sure exactly what he saw in me. I had, I, I had one farm tell me years later, he said, do you remember when you were buying Grain and you told us all to do this fancy Canadian Wheat Board contract? I'm like, no, I don't remember that at all. And he said, that was the best move we made that year. I was like, oh, maybe that's why Raymond decided to give me a chance. Then maybe he got caught wind of that, whatever that contract was that we did. So, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:16:19] And so then tell me then in, when you're working for Cargill, you're, what, what's your life like? And then what made you decide to move on from that?

Ryan Denis [00:16:28] Yeah, so I ended up at the time building the largest book of clients in, in Canada. So I guess I was quite successful at it. And like, there was certainly lots, like within the organization, like you have somebody at the top, analysts at the top that are watching markets and making calls. At that time I was just facilitating those recommendations. I was communicating them, communicating the reasoning and helping farms navigate those sales, knowing what they had for inventory, knowing what they needed for cash flow, you know, figuring out a business plan, but I wasn't making the calls. But then as you grow and learn and get more confident, then you start making the calls.

Ryan Denis [00:17:16] And what what ended up happening was there was just times where, you know, the, the main analyst would say, this is the recommendation, this is what we're doing. And then I'd have to stand there and say, shoot guys, I don't agree with this one and this is why, and this is what I'd like to do instead. And what ended up happening is those became more frequent and the calls from the top were less and less and less. And, and the, there was a struggle there, the, a bit of a rut where the recommendations weren't great. So it, it just, I started to take it on myself. So then after four years I was like, well, my budget keeps getting bigger at Cargill. I keep getting placed into all these meetings, driving all over the country, you know, the prairies to these meetings that don't really impact me or my business. Plus I need to put my 40 hours in on advising and working with farmers, I was just burnt out. I was like, you know what? Like if I'm gonna work this hard, I might as well do it for myself. And so in 2015 I decided to go independent and yeah, left, left Cargill started my own consulting business. I called it Full Acre, which not even sure where that came from, but maybe some Google search or something. And yeah, 31 of my 32 clients joined me shortly after I left.

Vance Crowe [00:18:48] Oh man. Okay, good.

Ryan Denis [00:18:50] Yeah. Yeah. I learned something though Vance. I learned, I learned, you know, that when you leave a, a big organization with a lot of, a lot of muscle and offices filled with lawyers that you, you learn some life lessons along the way. But I'm, I'm happy I did. I I got to experience something in life that maybe not everyone gets to and I, I got to, you know, kind of stand up for myself and, and get after it from a a, you know, a business owner perspective.

Vance Crowe [00:19:23] So, I mean, wow. Did, are you able To talk about the, the legal actions and how that all played out?

Ryan Denis [00:19:30] Yeah, to some degree for sure. I'll leave the, the nitty gritty out maybe, but you know, when, when you built that type of book of clients up and you build up that type of position, you know, as a person, farmers are working with people and they liked me as a person, right? And, and 'cause you're gonna get some calls, right, and some calls wrong, but if they know farmers know that, hey, every single day this guy's got my back and he's trying the best for my farm. Like, that's what they're signing up for. And so at the time, you know, Cargill disagreed with that. They said, we can put anybody in this guy's role and those farms will stay. And that's just not how it works.

Vance Crowe [00:20:16] I, I'm, I'm, I'm assuming in rural America business that Everything is

Ryan Denis [00:20:21] Yeah, Relationships, relationship.

Ryan Denis [00:20:23] It's a people business. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so you start off, you get, you know, the chill letter is what is what we call it or what I called it anyway, where it's like, Hey, you know, we know that you're on your own now and just we've got a set of eyes watching you. I'm like, okay, alright, sounds good. And then, you know, I, I made a couple of social media posts that, that i, I shouldn't have, right? Like that, that was my, that was my little error that I made. So that's where the door opened for them, just slightly. And I, I think it said something like, Hey, I'm on my own here guys now. And so open for business or something like that. And, and so that, that's where, that was where I crossed the line a little bit, but you know, it, it turned into massive, massive demands. Like Vance, I am, wow, how old am I at this point? I am like 30 years old. My assets include, you know, my second house that I'm sure were definitely, you know, mortgaged to the Hilton at that time. I think I've got a used truck, probably a good dog and maybe a good lawnmower, right? But they, the demand was, was big seven a seven figure demand. And I remember sitting on the back deck with my wife and I'm like, I don't know what this, what I'm supposed to do with this, but I guess we'll go and, and chat with some lawyer folks and, and figure out what this kind of means and, and what were we gonna do.

Ryan Denis [00:22:06] So I'm not sure where they would've got the money from, from me if, if they would've bankrupted me. But anyways, so, so like, you know, my dad, my dad's farm forever, right? So you have to go to your, I have to go to my dad, be like, Hey dad, you know, I'm going through some stuff here personally, and this is what's going on. And do you think my dad ever did business with Cargill after that Vance? Like, anyways, yeah. So I, I got to, you know, experience the $450 an hour lawyer rate and go through the process and, and go back and forth and, you know, at the end of the day, yeah, my social media posts were offside, you know, we settled for pennies on the dollar. And honestly, I, I got a quote to go to court 'cause the lawyers were like, you know, like, go for it man, if you wanna go for it. But it was a quarter million bucks to go to court. And so I'm like, all right, so if you can put this behind you for much less than that, is that what you do? Right? And yeah. So that's, that's what we did. And I, yeah, I remember going to my dad, I'm like, so I either need to borrow a quarter million dollars to go to court or, or maybe I need a little bit of help here to get this settled and, and put behind me.

Ryan Denis [00:23:43] And so, so we, yeah, it was, well like a year and a, a year and a half or something.

Vance Crowe [00:23:48] Oh man, that is a lot of stress in a, in a family. I mean, I know starting my own business, right? You're just trying to figure out how how do I, what am I required to do? What do I have to, to do to make this work? Yeah. How do I get people to know it? And then on top of that, you're, you're fighting one of the, the largest ag companies in the world who, who has infinity time and infinity money to fight you.

Ryan Denis [00:24:11] Y yeah. And like I get it in, in a sense, like, I get it, but like, at, at the end of the day, the result of everything, and, and maybe they accomplished something behind the scenes that I don't know, or that I'm not privy to, but from a financial perspective, like there was no gains here at all when it was all said and done. So I don't, I don't know, but they were, they were worried that other people would leave, right?

Vance Crowe [00:24:43] Yeah. That, that's what it is. I mean, like, I've seen this in the investing world, right? Where, where a single stockbroker may not be able to hurt the overall bottom line of the huge company, but what they don't want is to have five people do it. Because eventually you start getting like, oh, if, if they're not afraid to leave, then they can just, the, the, you know, those companies clearly know that the relationships matter. So now you have this business and this is advising people to make sales. So they take on the risk, right? They take on the like, all right, he's given me advice and I'm gonna pull the trigger.

Vance Crowe [00:25:18] Tell me about the psychology behind being a person that gives advice for, for money. 'cause I have to say, like in my line of work, I've gone in the opposite direction. Whereas I, as a, as a younger man, I was very willing to give advice. And as an older man, I give no advice ever on anything.

Ryan Denis [00:25:35] Yeah. Yeah. I, so one thing I tell people right off the hop is no matter what day of the week is, it's a Monday here within my, my client base of farms that I work with. There's a group of them that are just thrilled with me this morning, and there's a group of them that are just not happy with me at all. It's just, it's always, it's even keel because there's always a balance of people being happy and people being upset. But where I find myself is like, I was riding with a farmer the other day, harvesting their canola crop, and that guy's phone did not stop ringing. It did not stop. It did not stop. It kept ringing and rigging, ringing and ringing over all sorts of different things, right? It might have been a, a parts thing. It, it might have been a family thing, logistics, getting a kid to a, a, a program and event. But that phone didn't stop. And I was sitting there, I'm like, and I'm the guy that messages and says, I know you're really, really busy. I know there's a lot going on, but this is very important. This is what I picked up on today. This is the recommendation, this is the strategy, and this is what I want you to consider.

Ryan Denis [00:26:53] And then if I don't hear back within, I don't know, 50 and 20 minutes, half an hour, then it's there. I'm there again. Hey, I didn't hear back from you. I, I, I think you should do this, and this is why, this is how it fits our plan. But even if I go back, Vance, like I would say when I started that farms, they were going a lot on, on gut and feel, and we're not organized, right? We're not really organized to know what they had for inventory, what they had for quality, what they needed for cashflow. And so I feel like that's where it all kind of started, was about getting organized and coming up with a plan and then executing that plan throughout the year. So do I watch commodities every day and give advice on, on when or why to sell or not sell? Yes. But at the very base was just about getting organized and, and creating some type of plan that we could follow throughout the year to take that emotion out that we already talked about on the show.

Vance Crowe [00:28:03] You know, it's something, I've talked to a lot of people that do grain merchandising advising, but I'd never really thought about that thing that you just said there, which is, you are aware of their inventories, you're aware of the quality of the crop, and, and if those things like prices come in at different qualities and how much do you have, that actually would be a huge weight off of somebody to have somebody else participating in this.

Vance Crowe [00:28:28] Because if it's just you, it's like, it's very easy for you to be like, Hey, I do not have time today to deal with this. I've gotta do a hundred other things. And you could stack that up over and over and over again and eventually get pretty far off of whatever is the right way to be putting your grain out there.

Ryan Denis [00:28:43] Y yeah. And you know, so I, I wake up every day, I'm, I'm, you know, reading reports, putting out content as well, podcasts or, or writing stuff, you know, doing my own research and presenting that to this group. And, and honestly, there's times where people will disagree with me, right? They'll say, Hey, yeah, you see this, but I don't see it this way. I'm, I'm seeing it this way and they're still a client of mine. We still work together. They just see it different that day and they may be right, right? Like, this isn't easy by any means. If it was easy, I, you know, I, I don't know, I'd have fancier lights in the studio maybe or something, but like, you know, it's just, it's not an easy thing. And I tell farms like, you know, if you expect me to have the crystal ball, it ain't happening. It's not here. But yet, when I look back at my career farmers, and I'll think about moments where it really stood out. The, the fact that we were working together, there were certain advice that came out at that time that ended up being phenomenal. And so, you know, even if throughout the time the decisions are kind of equal or somewhere in the middle, wins and losses, but then you get these pops and these spikes and these things that occur that are the difference maker.

Ryan Denis [00:30:03] And they happen every year. I don't know when or or why it'll happen per se, but they happen every single year. And I, and I think we've already seen one happen here over the last couple months as well.

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Vance Crowe [00:30:49] What is phenomenal advice look like when, when you get it right, what happens? That wouldn't have happened if the person had just been doing it on their own.

Ryan Denis [00:30:58] Well, I, like, I would say the real life example here is just the confidence in the, in the moment. So we, for, for marketing wheat, and don't worry, I have my faults and I can throw those out as well and the poor decisions I made this year, but working with a farm farms one-on-one this fall, we're very patient in marketing our wheat. And the biggest reason we were so patient is because we were so offside, the margins were so negative that we were like, okay, let's, let's see how this goes yet there's no reason to jump ahead of this.

Ryan Denis [00:31:35] Let's get further into the growing season and see if we can get closer to our, to our breakevens. What ended up happening was a phenomenal rally that peaked in early September, right when farms were just getting into their harvest, didn't quite know what they had for quality, what they had for production, but we were able to sell all of our wheat off the combine, deliver it logistically all during harvest, which in western Canada, that's not what you do. You harvest your grain, you bring it home, you throw it in a bin, you plan for it later. But we were very aggressive, and this is like the last couple years this has kind of happened, but today, you know, there's a farm that delivered 300,000 bushels of wheat off the combine. And they're currently 300 grand ahead of where the market's at today. And, and the beauty about this plan with this farm was get the grain gone, convert that into cash, top up the the futures account and look for an opportunity to re-own this thing down the road. So it's like phase one, well maybe three phases, but part one, you know, try to get us close to a break even as we can. Boom, we actually got to a level of profitability, sold the daylights out of it, got the work done during harvest, saved bin space, cost there, all that stuff.

Ryan Denis [00:33:07] Now we're ahead of the market and we can sit back and say, okay, part three here is, you know, re ownership strategies. If we believe in the big supercycle bullish commodity run of 2027, you know, let's be a part of it. But we're just waiting right now. We're in the driver's seat. So yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:33:27] So let's talk about what your farmer customers are facing right now, because there's a lot of talk in the US about, you know, how hard it is for farmers and why we need to get them more payments. And so in the US there's grain prices have been down and up and whether they get payments, what's going on in Canada?

Ryan Denis [00:33:46] Well, number one, we don't get payments. We don't get any payments here, Vance. We, it, it is, it is challenging. In fact, I was looking at an article here before we started recording this morning. And even with the climb in prices and commodity prices here this year, there was still out of 10 crops listed, there was only one that was in profitable territory. And that's how the year started For 2026, you would look at your crop rotation farmers in, in my part of the world, most of them are putting in three or four different crops. And out of those four, there was only one that was, that was in the black that was positive from a margin perspective. And, and so a very difficult setup with high fertilizer prices, which has been the norm for the last couple of years.

Ryan Denis [00:34:40] You know, high equipment, all that stuff. Same thing going on in in the us. What we didn't have though is the high diesel price budgeted in, right? So that kind of like, we've made some great buys for diesel along the way. I'm not saying we haven't, but generally speaking, you know, you double your, your fuel budget and so you're even in on that part of the, of the operation.

Vance Crowe [00:35:05] You're helping people figure out when to purchase their inputs, not just when they're selling their grain.

Ryan Denis [00:35:12] So I, I'm all, I'm all in all the time. So what I mean by that is like, I've been a part of the farm I farmed as well with my dad and my brother I work with for my contribution to the farm now is about the business side. It's about selling the crops that they grow. It's about buying the, the inputs at the right time. It's about helping them navigate financial metrics for expansion and, and efficiencies and stuff like that. That's my contribution now. And I find myself in fortunate in a space where I talk to a lot of folks in the industry about all sorts of different things. And if I can facilitate a transaction or facilitate a, a deal or an idea on when to buy an input, I will. And, and so, you know, I stay very close to the, to the fuel market.

Ryan Denis [00:36:14] I stay very close to the fertilizer market. I've got great friends in great spots as well that can help me help farmers save money in those areas. There's weeks where I'll talk more about inputs than I will about selling the crop. In fact, that's kind of the time we're in right now. It's more about 2027 and planning 2027 and focusing on fuel and fertilizer than actually selling the crop that we just threw in the bin here.

Vance Crowe [00:36:46] Man, that is so much pressure. You know, I, my wife and I talk about, you know, some of the things that are on the horizon, things that are scary, how do we make choices? And, and we can get into some of that in a moment, but, you know, to think about purchasing your fuel a year ahead of time, I mean, I remember when fuel prices, diesel prices started really going up in the spring and people being like, oh, I locked mine in in the fall and you know what idiot didn't, and there are a lot of people like I didn't. And so you see like there's just so many variables in a world that seems right now to be accelerating and, and and chaotic, right? Where so much is changing wars and you know, we're clearing out embassies in Saudi Arabia and how is that gonna impact a wheat farmer in Manitoba is, I mean, just so hard to tell.

Ryan Denis [00:37:37] Yeah. And I, I don't know the answers. I don't know the answers. So what comes next? And I don't know the answers on when, you know, the world stuff gets resolved or when it escalates and what it does.

Ryan Denis [00:37:50] But when you're checking for opportunity throughout the year, like I had, I had farms that that bought fuel back in late winter. They bought fuel for the next like year and a half in some cases. I, I, I have some farms that we're harvesting this year with, you know, 70 cent a liter diesel when it went to 2, 2, 2 30 a liter. Like a big difference on the, on the old expense report. And then we hit a soft spot in the summer as well and I was like, you know what, like this is a, a good time to get more of this tidied up. Like our own farm we bought for a dollar six that week. Then again it went to two something. So it, it's, it's kind of, again, when I go back to the farmers, my clients that are just really busy doing everything, but yet it's a very minor part of my day to check in on those fuel prices at some point and then gather up, you know, the latest intel and, and decide, you know, where we stand. Like for me, if I'm in the habit of doing that regularly, it's not a big part of my day, but for the farm, you know, they might say, oh yeah, the fuel price did show up this afternoon, but I didn't get to see it until the next day 'cause whatever, I broke this, I got stuck here, I was gone, whatever.

Vance Crowe [00:39:24] So, you know, so one of the big changes that's going on right now in the world all over the world is AI and how much people are able to use AI to set up their, you know, monitor their bank accounts and check in on on inventories, things like that. How is AI changing your work and how do you think it's changing your customer's work?

Ryan Denis [00:39:48] Well, I think from a, I think from a like the farm perspective, you're probably, I'd say we're, we're at the very beginning, beginning part, but I, I hear the, the stories of farmers setting up, you know, their research engines, right? The automatic workflows for sending in grain pricing information, market headlines, just quick, easier to consume market intel to help them with their crop marketing. And even setting up different alerts to say, Hey, you know, this price has changed in, in this way instead of manually going to find it or having to wait for that text message or a phone call. You know, it's automatically populating in routinely for them every single, every single day. So that to me, like I, again, I'm stuck in like the, the grain side of this, right? But that's what I see happening more and more and, and just great, great time savings on getting some of that research to come across. And yeah, then from there I, I think integration and, and folks starting to, to make it part of their farm, it's still quite, you know, entry level.

Ryan Denis [00:41:06] It may even be like JD and John Deere Operations Center where that is, you know, one of the first things that farmers look at from an AI perspective is that within their John Deere operation center it might be anything research associated on, on their farm. Like that's where I see it today, linking up bank accounts and going into that next phase, I still see just plenty of, of hesitation out there and I think for good reason to go and let that layer out, let that information out to a different, you know, I don't know, a different space, I suppose different area.

Vance Crowe [00:41:48] Yeah, I think right now the way I see in US people using AI really interesting for like, you know, leases that come up or people finding like amazing ways to have to be able to search through title ownership and, and you know, where, who can I contact? And it really seems to me like the people most adopting AI right now are the little ones, right? They're the guys saying, I don't, I don't have capital, I don't have 10,000 acres, so what I'm gonna do is try and use this technology 'cause they have less risk there. Yeah. But to your point, like there is so much data that have been collected on farms for so long that if that sat on thumb drives the promise of things like Monsanto's Climate Corp and Corteva, I don't remember what theirs was called, but like they, they were like over, people wanted to do something with that data, but they couldn't.

Vance Crowe [00:42:41] I think AI is going to completely change this, where you're going to be able to dump in huge amounts of data and learn a lot about your farms and we'll see who does it first. My guess is it'll be the people that, that are the least capitalized. 'cause they're the ones willing to make the biggest risks.

Ryan Denis [00:42:59] Yeah. And and I wonder here with, with how like farming's always risky, right? But with how margins are squeezed right now, I wonder if that accelerates here. Just trying to find that edge and that advantage and really looking at your operation and seeing what, you know, what decisions need to be made or prioritized. Like you're right, there's gonna be a tremendous amount of data that that will, that will be well that will, you'll get prompted to be like, this is what you should do, this is what you could do. And you know, we've looked at all this and, and here you go. I'm just curious. So that gets accelerated with tight margins here and high risk.

Vance Crowe [00:43:46] Well, and I think it's, it's wild in Canada because I, I hadn't seen this until I went up and saw Canadian farms. I mean your farms are so much larger. The scale of, of operations are so much bigger in Canada that it seems like, you know, the, the natural propensity for commodities to always go down to the lowest possible price. If there is any margin to be squeezed, people will grab it and then it'll be pulled outta that market. And in Canada it seems like this is on a scale that's even larger in the US because you have, you know, 10,000 acre farms.

Vance Crowe [00:44:18] I mean, shoot, I you guys even use hectic. I I can, I can't even remember you guys have a special term for like 240 acres or whatever that is.

Ryan Denis [00:44:28] Well the section you guys talk sections. Yeah, that's right. Farming sections, yeah, quarter sections, half sections. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Vance Crowe [00:44:34] Which is just show like in the US that's just a scale that we don't, we don't yet have of consolidation.

Ryan Denis [00:44:40] You'll hear someone talk about a a they'll call it a section, but you'll be like, wait, isn't that more than a section? They're like, oh yeah, that's a block of like 1500 acres. But for some reason we call it a section like that's a lot more than a section. But yeah, farms, you know, the average farm size. I was chatting with an insurance company earlier this year, a private insurance company and they, they said the average farm size across the prairies was about 7,500 acres, which I thought was a little bit high, but they have a tremendous amount of data. So I'll, I'll go with them on this one.

Vance Crowe [00:45:15] So you are hosting a conference coming up real soon here, right there in December. Tell me a little bit about the conference. Where did it come from and who, who arrives at this thing?

Ryan Denis [00:45:26] Yeah, the crop marketing made cool conference, which was never, ever workshopped on if that name was, was good. And so the reason, so I'm sitting, it's July of 2024 and like Prairie Farmers went through the drought of 2021, which impacted everybody and what it resulted in large contract buyouts.

Ryan Denis [00:45:49] So people had to write checks to get out of their wheat contracts, get out of their pulse contracts, whatever it was. It was a terrible event. And it was the first time an entire generation of farmers, my brother included, ever experienced that. 'cause the last big event was 2002. Like my dad, he talks about 1988 and 2002. Like we get those references multiple times a year. 'cause they were just big, big events, big droughts in, in the prairies. And so 2021 was the latest one. So what happened was everyone had to write these checks for buyouts and then,

Vance Crowe [00:46:23] wait, let, let me clarify for people that don't know, people had already sold Yeah, the grain that was on their farm. They just said, okay, I'm gonna go out and I I'm gonna pay me for this. I'm gonna agree to get these contracts together. And then they weren't able to deliver the amount of grain that they said. And so in that, I, I've never even heard of that really happening very much here. So when that happens, you have to pay the people that you got the contract from.

Ryan Denis [00:46:46] Yeah. So let's say that it is, it is whatever April and the, the price of wheat goes to $8 and you say, you know what? That price makes sense to me. I'm going to sell 10,000 bushels before I produce it, before I've even planted it. I'm gonna go and sell it to that company. I'm gonna go and sell it to one of the big companies out there and commit to that delivery. And so you get into the growing season, you get some terrible weather, whatever it is, drought, you don't produce those 10,000 bushels at $8 and then the market goes to $10 'cause nobody has it.

Ryan Denis [00:47:25] So then you have to go and say, I'm sorry I don't have this, I'm going to write you a check for the difference and I need to cancel this. Well, in Canada there's this clause on, on the second page of your contract that basically says, as a grain company, I can come back to you, the farmer with the number that I need, you know, to get out of this contract. So even though I, on my website or in my text message, it says that my price is $10 a bushel. In fact, for some reason I need $11 a bushel to buy this back from you. So I know it said 10, but that's not where we're buying grain today. It's actually 11, which is a mystical number. So now you owe me $3 a bushel instead of two. And this clause was executed with many commodities from many different companies. And these farmers were writing these checks for these inflated numbers that didn't make any sense. Like it, it was, it's ridiculous. Like we should scratch those out. When you get a contract, you should just draw a line through it and initial it and say, okay, grain company, please initial this as well. 'cause I don't agree with this rule.

Vance Crowe [00:48:43] So then they, they had this terrible year and you decide, I'm gonna bring together some people to talk about how to handle this.

Ryan Denis [00:48:50] So we get, so from there we have the, the commodity market spike in 2022.

Ryan Denis [00:48:56] And, and I was actually, I had sold my business. So I started my business in 2015. In 2019 I sold my business to a farmer's business network. I dunno if you've heard of FBN before, but Sure. And so I worked with them for three years and then my contract was done. I wasn't continuing. So I was just on the sidelines, all right. And I'm seeing this market like I would bug my friends and my family. I'm like, do you guys mind if I talk markets with you guys? 'cause I don't have anybody to talk markets with anymore because I'm on the sidelines. And that's, I started podcast shortly after to get my message out, but the prices were declining, right? So now you have a market that is, is making lower highs in a downtrend and nobody wants to sell the darn thing because why would I sell it? I did it in 2021 and I wrote a check that almost bankrupt my farm and nobody was doing anything. We were growing the crops farms in Canada. Like I don't know what the actual number is, but if I talk to like a futures broker, like in the US this number's way bigger in Canada, less than 10% of farms are hedging crops with a, a futures account, right? And so farmers aren't doing anything and we would harvest a crop, sell it for a lower price and rinse and repeat. And I was like, okay, this has to stop. Farmers need to get confidence back in their crop marketing and I need to do something about this.

Ryan Denis [00:50:31] I'm sitting at an outdoor concert with my family and I'm like, wouldn't it be cool it's July. I'm like, wouldn't it be cool if we had like all the top crop marketing people, like come on stage, pitch us their greatest idea, bunch of farmers in the crowd, and then move them on over and bring the next one up and let's do that for a couple days. And I thought that would be cool. So I messaged the lady that helped me with marketing, Yvonne. I said, Yvonne, I wanna put on a conference in November. And she's like, perfect November of next year, no problem. We can do that. And I was like, no, in the next couple months I wanna put on this conference. Like farmers need to do this, they need to learn about this and get confidence back. Now we can't wait. And, and so we picked drum Heller, Alberta dinosaur land, you know, where all the dinosaur bones are is our first one. And I, I just canvassed and asked everybody in crop marketing that I could, like, would you come to this and, and talk to farmers and I want to pay you for your time. It's very important that there's no market outlooks. I don't want you to tell me what the price is gonna do tomorrow. I want you to tell me how, what tools I can use to participate in that. If it goes up or down, I don't care what it does. I want the tools instead. And so I went to the speakers and I said, you can't predict where price is going. I could care less. Do not do that. I need you to talk about the tools that we can use in any environment up or down.

Ryan Denis [00:52:06] Because as soon as you walk off that stage, there could be a, a social media post on X, there could be a event that happens where your outlook goes completely out the window. We don't want that. We want confidence and we want tools to get confidence. And so yeah, we, we brought a bunch of great speakers on in 2024, industry folks, analysts, futures brokers, anyone involved in crop marketing said yes. And we had a, a phenomenal event. We decided to do it again the next year. And now this is the third one. And I called you Vance, I messaged you, we had our first call. I was driving to the event in Moose Jaw and I said, Vance, I want you at the next one in Brandon, Manitoba.

Vance Crowe [00:52:52] Yeah, man, it's exciting. And I love where you're going with this, about the, the tools. 'cause I have been to conferences for years and years and I, I feel like it's the same thing with the weather guy, right? If you stand up there and you tell me what the weather's gonna be in a week, in a month, whatever, it's, it can all go away. What's way more interesting is if you tell me how do people understand where the weather is going, how what does make all these changes happen so that that way when the pressure changes and I can see it, I can start making decisions on my own. And you can start having your own hypothetical knowledge. So what Is it like to go to a conference where they're Not talking about price? I don't know that I've ever seen one.

Ryan Denis [00:53:31] Yeah, so I got one more thing to add. So I, I was getting asked to go and speak at conferences as well, right?

Ryan Denis [00:53:41] And, and I was considering a couple and, and they're like, yeah, so you, you would have to pay us to be on stage. And I said, pardon? And they said, well, you're going to expose yourself to some farmers and your strategy and so you're gonna gain clients. So we want you to pay to be on stage. And I was like, wait a second, that that, okay, sure, I'm gonna expose myself to a few more farmers, but there's no guarantee I'm gonna get a client out of this. Why the heck am I paying to go on this stage? And I, you know, at this weird like epiphany where I'm like, oh man, every time I go to a conference, the guy up there has paid to speak at me. Right? The person up there has paid to be up there. And I didn't think of it that way before. I was naive. I just, I'm like, right. So then I made a point for our conference. I said, folks, I know that you're gonna be on stage and I know you're gonna want to pitch a little bit, but you can't, you, I need to see your slide deck. I need to confirm the content that you're putting out there, and I will pay you for Your time And energy. I will pay you for your presence on stage. You are going to be compensated and you're selling yourself up there anyway, so have fun with it. People are gonna see, you know, you, they're gonna wanna engage with you, but you can't put an offer out and you can't talk about an outlook. So, and farmers, they love outlooks, man.

Ryan Denis [00:55:14] They love it. It's just like they sit there and they're like, just tell me what it's gonna do. Just tell me exactly what do they love that with the weather too. It's the most baffling Thing,

Vance Crowe [00:55:24] The most attended speaker at one of the conferences I've been going on for a couple decades here is the weather guy that everybody is in that room and you look at the track record and you're like, this guy's not even 50 50, he's gotta get it. Right? Like, and if He was, he would go to the betting markets and make A lot of money on the betting markets.

Ryan Denis [00:55:45] That's right. That's right. Actually, that was the one I was hoping to get some of that, not betting like, but like trying to figure out risk management in the betting markets. I couldn't pull it off for Brandon, so I'm gonna have to do it at the next one. But how you can bet on weather to manage risk on your farm. Like there's a window here to, or an opportunity to do something on this. I just was hoping to do it in Brandon. You never know. Maybe I, I'll unearth it in the next couple weeks here yet, but so far I've, I've missed on that one. But yeah, so

Vance Crowe [00:56:19] No, let's, so who comes to your conference? Who, who Decides to make their way to Brandon? How, you know Yeah. What are they, what makes it this different than others?

Ryan Denis [00:56:29] So I put out a podcast every week as well. And so the first one in drum Heller, one of the, one of the old boys, Chuck, he's on the show regularly, but he, he got on stage and after he got off, he said, Ryan, like, where's all the old guys?

Ryan Denis [00:56:47] I, I'm the oldest guy here. And I was like, what do you mean he is like, look at the crowd. It's young. It's a young crowd. I'd call the crowd like 40 or less. I'm 41. Am I 41? Something like that, right? And it's a younger crowd, not like, we're not trying to not have the old guys show up or the old folks, by all means come on down. But it is a bit of a younger crowd. It's the next level of decision makers that I can see. We have a lot of parents and their kids as well. Last year we had a whole, actually each year we have a table, a couple tables where it's the entire family. It's mom, dad, the three kids, sometimes their spouses as well are there, like the next generation and the, like, the content, there's something for everybody. There's like beginner stuff and advanced stuff and everything in between. But it tends to be a slightly younger crowd. Lots of husbands and wives there as well. We've had some great feedback from some of the partners, you know, like I just think of the one after drum Heller. She said, I had no idea the amount of pressure that, that Dwayne had on, on making these decisions. And she said, I'm, I'm gonna be helping him moving forward. I can do some of this. I can help him in these decisions. And they're this crop marketing duo now that's just kicking butt. So it's great to see you.

Ryan Denis [00:58:19] Remember I said I was at a, an outdoor music concert. So we've incorporated the energy of that into our events. So there's always, when you get there, you'll see there's a whole merch tent, like going to a concert, like you're going to, you know, your AC CDC concert or whatever. There's a bunch of merch, but it's free, right? You grab what you want. There's different t-shirt styles, there's all sorts of merch items, hockey pox, there's, we've had fishing hooks, we all sorts of stuff. The coolest hats like this one. And you grab what you want, you just come and grab the merch, what you want. We have music DJs playing tunes in breaks, high energy breaks because we know crop marketing can be a little doll at times, right? So our breaks are always high energy giving out prizes throughout the day. Last year we, we did a contest who had the messiest vehicle that they drove, who drove the farm truck to the conference. And we had a contest. We picked the messiest one and the detailer. We had a detailer come grab the vehicle, clean it up, polish it up and bring it back. Before the conference was done for the farmer, it was the messiest truck they had ever cleaned.

Vance Crowe [00:59:40] But try, I mean, it's so fun to hear you talking about this. I, I think so many conferences are perfunctory and there is something about Western Canadians knowing about the, the art of, of meeting and coming together.

Vance Crowe [00:59:51] But ever since we talked, I think it was a year. Yeah, it was a year ago. You right on there, like I've been like, this Is Very, very different. I don't normally have the people that the hosts of a, an event I'm going to on the podcast, but I was like, man, this is cool. I'm, I'm looking forward to this.

Ryan Denis [01:00:06] It like, we, we want to have fun. Community is super important. We do it in these smaller cities to have a, a stronger impact to those communities financially, right? We bring in an event for, for those communities, those businesses, to, to make a little money that week, right? The local food caterers, the local breweries like the local, you know, sporting goods store, like everyone to get a little bit of a boost from, from us attending. But we also know community is so important that farmers, they want to build their own networks, they want to talk to each other and they take those relationships out of the conference after there's guys that, they have group, group messages, group texts going on. They started in drum heller, they're all coming to Brandon and they still keep in touch regularly throughout the year. Like again, crop marketing, you're gonna have good days, bad days. We don't know what's necessarily coming down the road, but building community, learning, you know, tools on how to tackle anything coming your way, like that's what it's all about. And then in the meantime, let's have some fun. Let's spin some tunes, let's have some fun activations. This year we're doing Chucka puck.

Ryan Denis [01:01:22] Alright, so far Farmers are gonna be in the hockey stands. We rented the hockey ice, the arena, and there's a bunch of prizes on the ice and they have to Jane pucks throughout the, the evening. And then at I think eight 30 ish, we're all gonna chuck pucks on the ice and whoever gets closest to the big screen TV wins the tv. Whoever gets closest to you know, name the partner, they win that there's gonna be a bunch of fun going on. So should be neat.

Vance Crowe [01:01:50] Well, man, I'm quite excited about this. If people are interested to learn more, they're considering coming. Tell me when is it and where should they go to learn more?

Ryan Denis [01:01:22] Yeah, so December 1st and second in Brandon, Manitoba at the Keystone Center. And all the details are@ryandenny.ca. So that's how you can get those details and don't be a stranger. What the Futures podcast has a whole bunch of content on the, on the conference as well. So December 1st, second Brandon in Manitoba, and I think there's gonna be a couple of North Dakota folks making their way the way it sounds. So if you wanna a cheap little crop marketing vacation, you can certainly make the drive up to Brandon.

Vance Crowe [01:02:35] Well, I cannot wait, and it's only a few weeks away, so I will see you there, Ryan.

Ryan Denis [01:02:40] Sounds good. Appreciate it, Vance.

Vance Crowe [01:02:42] That's gonna do it for this week's interview. Thank you so much for joining me. If you are interested in learning some of the communications and negotiation skills that I talk about, consider coming to the interest based communications course that I hold here in St.

Vance Crowe [01:02:56] Louis, Missouri. You can learn more by going to Articulate Ventures slash IBC. All right, we'll be back next week with another interesting interview.

Ad segment / testimonials (multiple voices) [01:03:11] I learned here. How to communicate with intent and with interest. Very lecture, light and practice heavy. The 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.