Clink Fischer
Appearances
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
It is a personal character trait of having that willingness to say, number one, we're recognizing that Junior is capable, has the skill set, has the ability to take over some of our management duties. And then number two, it's that how the heck do you just give up control? And that's just human nature is we want control. And so in order to give up control and
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Well thanks gentlemen.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
First of First and foremost, I need to recognize that Corey's wearing a shirt from Runnings that I bought three, four years ago. And, man, those things deteriorate over time.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
No, I'm wearing pearl snaps.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Right? Yeah. And the tanners weren't just showing up professionally. He's ready to rock and roll.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Yeah. Well, I think Braintrust Egg needs to join forces and get in touch with those shirts. But, Corey, I'm sorry, but that shirt is just not doing it for me.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
I'm just going to reserve judgment for the lack of chest hair that I just saw.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And from that point forward, all right, hey, I'm Clint Fisher. And, yeah, let's talk about my world, which is estate planning. succession planning for farmers and ranchers, and it's just helping build better farm businesses. The podcast is called Farm for Profit.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Which to me is a little bit counterintuitive because if we're not farming for profit, what the heck are we doing out there?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Well, we won't be farming for long, but however, I do recognize and I help a lot of folks who don't care about the profit side. So young people who have a hobby farm or, I mean, growing up, I grew up on a hobby farm and the profit didn't matter. But where I'm focused at, where I actually can connect with folks is how do we make profit?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And then how do we build that farm business into something that we can transition to the next generation?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And so as an attorney in South Dakota who works with farm families daily, that is primarily my, my, uh, my focus is how do we effectively do that? And obviously there's tax implications. Um, there's family dynamic in implications. And so those are the things that I talked about on Twitter or X, sorry, and, and elsewhere. But, um,
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Yeah, so I'm just really passionate about, one, helping farm families transition in operation to the next generation. And then number two, how the heck do we incentivize or inspire non-farm folks to get involved in agriculture and kind of go that route? Yeah. So that's a bit about me.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Yeah, I grew up on a hobby farm. And frankly, folks... I rode the school bus from 10 miles north of where I went to school all the way to school every day. And we were the first pickup on the route. So I was on that school bus for an hour and a half.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And I rode on there. And all of my friends on that school bus were talking about tractors and yields and farming. And I couldn't relate. This is just me being transparent here. I kind of felt like I was missing out on something. I grew up in the country, but not on a production farm. My grandpa was farming while I was going to school.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And so to answer your question, it was, man, that is really cool. I really want to do that in the future. How the heck do you get into that world as a freaking grade schooler? And that kind of led to me just being like the misfit. Right. So I wasn't really a farm kid. I wasn't really a town kid.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And I mean, granted, town kid means thousand people were, you know, citizens of our of our small town in South Dakota. That has really kind of been weighing on my shoulder since I was a kid. So fast forward years and years and years and years, I got a degree in egg business. I managed some egg retail locations. So for 10 years, I was kind of in that egg retail space.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
I owned a fencing company for a while. And one of the things that I saw is that, man, there's a big misconnect from where egg operations are at today versus where The next generation is going to take those over. And that led me to go into law school as a late in life. I was that non-traditional student at law school who everybody just hates because I'm the one who's there to learn.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Everybody else is there just to get a degree, right? And so I'm there and I'm asking questions and I answer. but I'm also not the one who says, yeah, let's not have more homework. Let's get out early because I'm there to learn. So I went to law school, got a degree, and here we are. Now I'm an attorney in South Dakota with a primary focus on helping farm families transition their operation.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
But what does that even look like? What does that mean? And to me, it means we need to take this separate idea of we have an ag operation that is separate from our family dynamics our estate planning and let's combine those things into a a comprehensive transition plan so that looks like number one farm for profit means we're treating this thing as a business
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Number two, we're going to incorporate that into whoever's either taking over the operation and then adding on to whoever is maybe not taking over the operation and just trying to figure out all of those moving pieces and you got family relationships and just drama that all comes into play there. So all of that long backstory to get into like, what is Braintrust Ag?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Brain Trust Egg is something that started a little over a year ago for primarily the purpose of me saying, hey, these are the tools I use daily. And why don't you come and access them? Which within like a week or two, I realized, oh, now people actually want to connect with other people. They don't just want to access a database of tools.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And that's where this peer group idea of Brain Trust Ag kind of evolved and came about so that a farmer in South Dakota could connect with a rancher in Montana or a farmer in North Carolina and understand what works and most importantly, what doesn't work in their operation. and apply kind of those principles, those ideas and share those ideas.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
The other kind of thing that has evolved out of this is, man, we're kind of isolated and maybe a bit lonely in the egg world. Yeah, we have social media, but do we have true connections through that? And so through Braintrust Egg, we've been able to establish and build up kind of these connections. with other people in agriculture who are like-minded because we're not here for everybody.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
We're here for those folks who want to understand better how to treat their operation as a farm business or a ranch business or an ag business. We're here to encourage and support young people trying to get involved in agriculture. And then third, we're here to help. figure out how the heck do we transition this operation to the next generation. That's kind of my passion.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Obviously, I talk longer than you wanted me to. You try to interrupt me a few times, but yes, I'm an attorney in South Dakota, but I do a lot of other things besides that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Yes. And to that point, Tanner, so I worked in the elevator world for six years.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And I remember, so I mean, think about small town, South Dakota, there is maybe 50 people in Badger, South Dakota on any given Saturday night, because that's when they take the census and they go to the bar, the one bar in town and they count heads and say, okay, population of Badger is 50 people because that's how many people are at the bar that night.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And, and so our elevator was in Badger, South Dakota and, And I was in charge of managing the feed department. And I would go in there and every morning at about 6.30, we would have 10 to 12, maybe 15 people, local farmers come in for coffee hour. And they would be there from 6.30 until 8 o'clock maybe. And they would talk about all the local gossip, of course.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
But then they would also talk about some kind of farm stuff. And what I recognized is none of those people were willing to peel back the layers of the onion of their farm business. to share with their quote unquote competitors, right? And so I'm looking at this as the local coffee hour in a town of, let's be real, 25 people. And so how does that kind of expand out to the general population?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
It is every community I've been in, every place that I've sold seed, feed, fertilizer, chemical, I've done a lot of things. They all have their kind of local go-to for, whether it's the gas station or the elevator or the coffee shop, that place where farm people meet, but they don't, they're kind of reserved in how they share information.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Well, I'll finish up here. You remove that kind of local competition aspect. And now I've got somebody in Oklahoma sharing exactly all the details to somebody in Kentucky who wants to learn how they compete.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
bought ground how they were able to structure their lease agreement from a crop share or from a cash rent to a crop share right like these details are so valuable and that is only facilitated through brain trust egg and through that online component and so that's to me
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
really the true value of removing kind of that local competition aspect from the coffee shop, coffee hour, to kind of making it more online. And that's so far what we've been doing.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Yeah, I think that's key, Tanner, is you have to develop that relationship first and foremost. And if we're going to be, you know, the three of us, if we were to join some kind of a group that has some payment aspect, well, we can already assume that we have a bit in kind of like-minded, a bit in common. And so the first threshold is,
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
for these discussions is, are we actually talking with folks who are invested in building better ag businesses? And the answer is yes. And so there's automatically a little bit of a trust factor when folks join BrainTrust Ag, but then we have ongoing like this last week, we had three live events that folks can jump on Zoom calls and discuss things.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
We talk about things that are pertinent to ag business management. Okay, so what does that mean? Well, that means we're looking at these things as not a lifestyle. We're looking at how are we being more efficient and effective with our equipment. What are some opportunities from a marketing standpoint? How could I sell some ground and 1031 exchange that into ground closer to me?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And so it's a wide variety of things. The two things that I tell folks that we don't really talk about are, number one, current markets, because you go on Twitter and you can find that. The other thing we don't talk about is weather and how, shoot, we're in a drought. Okay, that's fine. You can go and be worried about that on other social media platforms.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
So let's talk about things that we can control, which is how are we managing our operations and how are we transitioning? What are opportunities available to either the next generation or somebody who's trying to figure out how the heck they're going to make a living in agriculture? And so those are kind of the two primary focuses. How about that for a generic answer?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
I'll retract. I'll retract. Everything's generic, I said.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
So Yesterday, we had what we call a soil gathering, which is just members getting together talking about some topic. Yesterday's topic was opportunities for first generation and next generation farmers. And so a specific example is a gentleman in Minnesota who he's trying to build up his farming operation.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
the question of how the heck can I specifically find people to custom graze my row crop farm. So their row crop operation, they've got a lot of corn stalks and a gentleman from Kentucky said, hey, here's what we do. And specifically described the model, all the points of their contracts, and how they custom graze corn stalks in Kentucky.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And then that gentleman in Minnesota said, hey, I also want to do this with sheep. And how can we kind of reframe this thing? And so I sent him some who I know in the sheep world, and the member in Kentucky sent him his spreadsheet of here's how we value custom grazing for fall grazing, for winter grazing on corn stalks.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And what it allowed him to do, or hopefully will allow him to do, is to take productive ground, corn stalks and figure out a way to charge per head per day to graze on that ground. And those are the types of connections.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Those are the types of discussions that I like to get into the weeds because I'm, I'm, I'm this, this weird blend of, yes, I like the legal side, but I also just like the entrepreneurial side. And so I'm, I'm just here looking at things saying, how do we get people to, Looking at ways to insulate us from commodity, traditional commodity markets and how that impacts our businesses.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
A specific example that just happened yesterday.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
But that's the thing that we talk about, Tanner. Okay, so what are the barriers to making that happen? One is fences. The other thing is water source. And so we can get granular about that and say, all right, what's it going to cost? Is it going to cost two bucks, two and a half bucks a foot to put up an appropriate fence?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
What's it going to cost to put up a water tank and to haul water or to find a water source? And are those things going to outweigh the potential income, the cash flow that comes from custom grazing some, you know, all quarter of corn stalks.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Yeah, so I started it just about a year ago as kind of a way to share what I do daily from a tools and resources standpoint. And, yeah, I'm – frankly, guys, I'm just figuring this all out as I go.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Okay? And I'm – what do they say? I'm just the – Everything from the bathroom cleaner all the way up to the head chief in charge. And it's not my day job. I don't make a ton of money doing it. But it's a way for me to be actually involved in agriculture and provide a service that I think is valuable. to folks.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And as soon as it becomes not valuable, I'll just shut it down and I'll just go to being an attorney and move along with my life.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
For the time being, it's got some value there. And I'm just figuring out as I go.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Are you guys good if I share two bits of wisdom that are going to upset 90% of the egg crowd?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Yeah. Number one. And both of these came from my egg finance instructor at SDSU. Number one is that the vast majority of actual production farmers should just be employees. What does that mean? That means that they should be renting out their ground to somebody who understands the business side of the operation and they should be collecting a paycheck plus a rent check
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
to somebody else because they are really good at steering a tractor. They are not great at spending time in front of a computer, understanding the break evens and the budgeting and the P&L and the balance sheet and how are we running this thing from the back end standpoint as a business. And if I say that out on Twitter, people are going to get all worked up and upset because
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And that's fair. So that's number one. Number two is that the vast majority of people who are a farmer, rancher, egg business owner, spend too much time working on the $30 an hour jobs versus the $150 an hour jobs. And what does that mean? That means that, kind of similar to what I just said, is... we're looking at marketing, we're looking at What is our insurance policy?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And can I shop that around and find somebody who is going to be more cost effective and more efficient from a cost saving standpoint? What is my marketing plan? What is my cost of production? What are my inputs at? And can I shop that around? And those things all are in front of a computer screen with a spreadsheet and a phone in your hand.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
to me it is for that next generation to show their aptitude their skill set their ability to a take over the operation and kind of keep things status quo but also what are they bringing to the table are they bringing some other type of skills and ability or connections relationships to the farming operation so that the owner generation says okay this thing is in good hands
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And man, that is different than a lot of people who think that farming is greasing a piece of equipment or fixing fence or, you know, changing the oil in their ranger. And I think that those two kind of concepts, and this is, again, I mean, I was an undergrad 20 years ago. But those things still apply today. And I find those two pieces of wisdom applicable, but it offends people.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And why does that offend people? Because we're treating ag operations as lifestyles versus businesses. Which, to tie that back into my day job as somebody who works with farm families through that transition process I look at, all right, which operations have been most successful?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Number one and first and foremost is the ones who have treated their operation honestly as a business versus tying in all of their lifestyle considerations. And so there's that separation between here's our family, We own land. We own a farming operation. We have business management policies and procedures in place. We meet monthly, quarterly, annually to talk about the farm business.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
But that isn't what I eat, breathe, and sleep every day as a family person. those operations are the ones that transition the best because we're looking at things a little bit more objectively versus trying to recognize how does land transition? How does the equipment transition? How are we going to be able to support on-farm and off-farm kids?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And it is much clearer and much more well-defined when we have a separate operation versus those who don't. That's why I'm, I'm kind of tying all these pieces together. And that's what we try to do with brain trust egg is recognize a street. Number one, let's let's build an attractive egg business. Number two, let's transition this thing in a reasonable way to keep all the stakeholders involved.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
So the answer is yes and no. Uh, typical attorney, right? Just for the listeners, the default answer for an attorney is it depends. Um, and accountants and bankers and accountants and bankers, anybody in professional services world. But, uh, What I've seen, to answer your question directly, Corey, is yes. However, it took buy-in from both the owner generation and the successor generation. Okay.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And I think that is really where we can make that change happen is if I can convince the owner generation who are in their 50s or 60s that you're not going to be doing this forever. You're not going to be 90 years old and still making all the decisions. If you can transition the management duties early enough, then yes, it is feasible and doable and we can make that thing happen.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And so it takes, like I said, buy-in on both the owner generation. The successor generation needs to approach it in a way that is not, I'm entitled to this. I don't have my hand out, but I have skills and knowledge and am willing to work my tail off to make this transition happen.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And so if we can transition the management side of things before any ownership, before any estate planning or ownership transition happens, if we can make that happen, then yes. We can go from this is a lifestyle that I inherited from my folks to this is being treated as a business. We're actually having business management meetings.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
We're actually separating these things away from the family drama. That's where I've seen that actually happen, Corey, is when we have buy-in from both generations.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Oh, completely, yeah. So I think that's where people see that. This is no knock on what has happened from the 1880s to the 2000s. This is just, we're concerned right now about the economic future of our operations. And, you know, there's this general consensus out there that we don't want corporate farms. Okay. How do we preserve a family farm legacy?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Number one, you build something that's somewhat profitable to bring in that next generation. Number two is you have a good plan, a written plan to transition it. It's not that complex, but both of those two things are key and paramount to us preserving family farm operations.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Great question. Number one is willingness. And that's not something that your attorney or your banker or your accountant can provide. It is a personal character trait of having that willingness to say, number one, we're is capable, has the skill set, has the ability to take over some of our management duties. And then number two is that how the heck do you just give up control?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And that's just human nature is we want control. And so in order to give up control, To me, it is for that next generation to show their aptitude, their skill set, their ability to, A, take over the operation and kind of keep things status quo. But also, what are they bringing to the table?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Are they bringing some other type of skills and ability or connections, relationships to the farming operation so that the owner generation says, okay, this thing is in good hands.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
right and that is primary and there's uh you know there's there's this idea out there which i i buy into of kind of a life cycle of a family farming ranching operation and number one is you start as a laborer then you slowly transition into a manager and then you transition into a leader And then finally, at the end of that cycle, is we transition into an owner. So what does that mean?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
That means that we need to develop the skills to be a good employee. Then we need to develop the skills to be a good manager. Then we need to develop the skills to be a good leader. And then finally, we can actually be a capital alligator, which is what an owner is. And so if we're bringing on kids just because of their last name and not because they've professed any of those skills,
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
I think we're doing more harm than good into our operations. And so that's the way I look at it. Now, you mentioned something, Tanner, about these ideas of, man, it's kind of bleak out there. And the importance of a peer group, the importance of people who you trust and who you can relate to. And I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you about this.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
So a couple of weeks ago with brain trust day, we had a, every Wednesday morning we do what's called a sunrise sessions. And that's, it's from six 30 until seven central time every Wednesday morning. And we talk about some Bible study stuff. We talk about leadership things.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Um, just, yeah, just kind of talk about like, where are we at checking in as men and women in agriculture from a personal standpoint, not the business side, not the legal side. And, um, I was on vacation with my family, actually down in Iowa, and I didn't prepare anything for that Wednesday morning.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
So 6.30 comes around, and so I show up sitting on the dock of this lake, and I just joined the Zoom call on my phone, and I tell people, like, hey, I didn't prepare anything. I'm supposed to be later here. Let's just open this thing up for discussion. One of the gentlemen...
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
almost immediately, who has been involved for the last seven, eight weeks, said, hey, I woke up last night, about midnight, I woke up my wife and I said, I don't know if I can do this anymore. That's pretty heavy stuff. And do you mean farming? Do you mean life in general? Like, how can we help you? How can we support you as a group? And mind you, there was 13, 14 people on this call.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And he said, I just, the numbers aren't looking good. He says, I just didn't know what the heck to do. I needed to get on this call this morning to hear from other people who have similar issues, similar concerns, but also who are there to have a support network, a support system. And so we talked through that. And as a group, there were people who were contributing to that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And okay, fast forward two hours after this group call happened, and I got an email from somebody who has been on every single one of our Zoom calls, but has never turned on his camera, has never said a word in any of our gatherings. And he emailed me and he said, hey, that was exactly what I needed to hear this morning. I'm so thankful I was part of that group this morning.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
I know that you didn't prepare anything in advance. And I was going down a very dark path. So thank you. And it's like, oh, those things just kind of hit you, right? Right. And so we spend this podcast talking about farm business and transitions and what are we doing as an industry to facilitate some of these things.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Honestly, a lot of what Brain Trust Egg ultimately is, is let's talk about things that matter with trusted people who are there to support you, not chastise you.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
So anyway, I wanted to share that, Tanner, since you had mentioned, you know, some of those other issues that are plaguing agriculture today.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Yep. Well, and I recognize that I just threw a wet blanket on our discussion, you know, bringing that up. But the reason I bring that up is, is just the importance of, you know, it's something where, yeah, we can have disagreements on, are we going to be no-till, strip-till, conventional-till? Are we going to have disagreements on, do we cover crop?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Do we not, you know, are we raising our cattle in a confinement setting? Are we, you know, grass-fed beef, things like that. But at the end of the day, aren't we all in this thing together? As agriculture, let's support all of the various ways that folks can get involved in agriculture. And man, I think that's really something that we ought to drive home a little bit more than maybe we do.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And part of that is, generally speaking, let's support each other Yes, from a mental health, mental fitness standpoint, and just let's support everybody involved who wants to either get into agriculture, who wants to expand their operation, and who also wants to transition out. And that's what we're ultimately trying to do.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
So to that, to that point, Corey, people love him or hate him or have just no opinion on Dave Ramsey. Um, one of the things that I respect about him is that he owns a lot of real estate with cash. Okay. And so in 2008, obviously we had the great, you know, financial issue, but also, I mean, it really affected, it really impacted the real estate world.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And he said, this is a time for me to buy real estate at a bargain on discount. And because he was sitting on piles of cash and, you know, he didn't have those issues. And so he,
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
the last and this was a couple years ago i looked into it i mean he bought something like 10 15 million dollars worth of of of real estate income producing real estate in that you know right after that 2008 crisis that is now worth you know hundreds of millions of dollars and it to your point corey it's it's is this an opportunity for those good managers If so, then let's capitalize on it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
If you're not in that situation to take advantage of this as potentially an opportunity, what are you going to do from an operational standpoint to put yourself in that position going forward to capitalize on the next opportunity?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And I think those are the messages that we ought to be sending.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Love it, Tanner. Great, great summary. And here's my answer to your question. I'm not great at separating or carving off time from business. business endeavors to non-business endeavors. But what I will say is it is crucial and it is something I'm trying to get better at.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And I think it is so important for, especially in the agricultural world, whether you're a farmer or a rancher or an egg business owner, and you have all of these irons in the fire to unplug and to focus on family. And me personally, I focus, trying to focus more on faith and trying to understand there is more out there in this life that we have than just our farming operation. And so
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
How do I unplug? I have hobbies. I also have three daughters with a son on the way coming in October. Congrats. So a lot of my unplugging is hanging out with them. And I love them. And they're awesome. And I enjoy spending time with them and my wife. And so let's prioritize family. Let's prioritize faith. Let's prioritize mental health. And then the rest will kind of come together.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Shoot, it's probably been about 18 months.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Yeah, it's not trying to be engaging, chasing the algorithm. I talk about things that are near and dear to ag people's everyday's hearts. And I guess to answer your question is I try to explain here's a real life scenario. Here's a story. of somebody who I'm working with, how does that apply to your life? Because personally, I learn the best from stories. I expect other people do as well.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Therefore, I'm going to present stories of, here's a situation, what do you guys think? I'm not here to pass judgment, or I'm not here to dictate one way or another what is right or wrong. but I want people to think about these ideas of succession planning and transition planning and farm business management. That's been my approach.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
It's probably not something that you would Google and find blog posts about or things of that nature, but that's been my approach is just trying to relay stories, real life stories, and How do you interpret those?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
There are. There are. And that goes to the point of – which is what we talk about a lot within Brain Trust Ag. But I throw those things out there to say, hey, let's inspire that next generation. Let's not just be all Debbie Downers about this thing and saying that, oh, you can't get into agriculture because you don't have $16 million worth of capital to go buy two quarters of ground.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And let's inspire all of these opportunities that do exist. In my world, working through farm transitions, A lot of it is there's a generation right now that we're kind of facing who don't necessarily have a successor to take over, number one.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Number two is they also don't want to sell out to the next door neighbor who's the big-time operator, but they also don't realize that there's an opportunity to bring on a third-party, non-relative successor to take over their operation. And so how do we promote that more is also one of kind of my focal points.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Yeah. On X, I'm Clint W. Fisher and braintrustag.com. Pretty easy. My email's on there. Yeah, just My DMs are open. Just reach out. I try to respond as much as possible. And then I guess number one, first and foremost, is let's support Farm for Profit and what you guys are doing because it is huge. It is so important, the message that you guys are sharing with everybody in agriculture.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
And, yeah, kudos to you.