John Liebel
Appearances
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
Expansion, right? Well, yes, we do have six physical locations, five in Iowa and then one in Brandon, South Dakota. And we could expand that footprint even more if we wanted to. But To that point, I mean, the calls come in on a regular basis. Hey, how can I join your team? How can I become a dealer for TerraPlex? And that is one of those questions that does pop up a lot in the industry, right?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
You know, there's a lot of companies that will sit there and say, hey, we're looking for dealers in our area or, you know, become a sub-dealer, sub-distributor for us. And we're not any different in that capacity right now. But our approach is maybe a little bit different in that sense. You know, certainly we will entertain that conversation. We want to have that conversation with people
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
folks who are interested in, but typically they've been a customer or they want to become a customer, right? And we really, really, really want them to kind of really be in the drone business the way we are in the drone business, right?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
Our motto, our model approach is not just simply we're going to sell you a drone and we're going to ship the box to you, which I think, Ryan, that's probably how your first drone came to you, right? You bought a drone at a trade show and then the drone gets delivered and so now what? And how many YouTube links can you find to learn how to set this up? It's not that easy.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
And that's one of the things that really attracted me to this company and pulled me in was seeing the care that Ryan and Danny and the rest of our team really put into educating our consumers, educating our customers as to how to operate that drone.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
Danny and I just took a trip down to Arkansas a few weeks ago, and he was on his phone the entire time, answering calls and taking calls and making calls and even just wellness checks of customers of, hey, how you doing? How's it going? And that's part of what we're doing. So is that expansion happening? Yes. Will it always be a TerraPlex store officially that we own and operate? Maybe not.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
But our affiliate program that is off and running right now is something that we are entertaining conversations with people online. all throughout the country, Arkansas, Texas, Minnesota, Nebraska, and growing even the Pacific Northwest as those conversations come in.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
Yeah, yeah. Now we're trying to get Ryan to be off his phone more, but I'd say call right now. It starts with that conversation, right? And usually those conversations find their way to the right person in the company, whether it's Ryan or Danny or myself when that conversation does happen. But yeah, absolutely. Looking to expand our footprint.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
You said a key point, too. I think, you know, when you want to do it, right? You know, and one of our approaches is with our company is take flight, take control. Right. I mean, you know, tell me you've met a farmer that doesn't want control of their farming operation. You can't. Right. And that's one of the things that we've seen.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
And with the wet spring that we have this year, control is out the window if you had a ground rig. Right. And love them. Right. And a crucial part of the farming culture. But our calls went from. When can you get in here? Not how much. How much does it cost? It's like, we need you now. And so our crews were running a ton this year, aspect of that. And I think we solved that.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
Now, it's not going to be as wet as it was this year, every year. But that control aspect is so big with our customers, knowing what's in the tank, what's going on in their fields, when they can get in there, and being able to do it when and what they want and how often they want.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
And to even piggyback on the technology comment with what Ryan said, will there be a drone on every farm? Maybe not a spray drone, right? Now, we obviously like that from that perspective, but the imaging drones are next level for what it's doing. And that's even been exciting talking to some farmers here at the show, right, who run a bigger operation. They've got a ground rig or two.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
But there's a need for the imaging drones. And we've heard it to how many cattle farmers. And the minute you talk about a thermal drone, they're like, oh, yeah, that would help me next time they get out, you know, when one gets loose. And Ryan's got that own personal example there. But even from the imaging perspective, there are drones that you can program to go up
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
two or three times a day, or every day, same time every week, and go take a look at your crop, go look at your field, send that analysis right back to you.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
And Sue's been involved with some of the crop analysis programs that we've seen this year, and we continue to look for new partners in that space as well, too, to really provide even another level and another layer of service to our customers out there as well, to show them stand counts, show them some of the NDVI imagery, show them the health of their crop when they can't necessarily look at it from eye level or ground level.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
My goodness. Well, everything starts at teraplexag.com, right? I may just jump in there and run through there. And look, we know people that are into drones, they're doing their research first, which is great. And I think we've seen that with a lot of our customers. They don't need that full education for when they come in. They want to ask about... you know, what brands do we carry?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
We carry both DJI and XHE, which is really great for us because we can give you an unbiased opinion, right? Both of those drones, both of those drone manufacturers are excellent in their own right, but different farms have different needs based on those models. So we're going to help people with that. The service element is a big thing, right?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
Not just the service after the sale, but when that drone inevitably crashes, it's going to crash. You're going to hit something, right? We know that that's going to happen, but we've got multiple service centers in multiple locations where the guys are going to
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
work late i mean how many times do we get an email or a text message from from the guys running at you know 1am 2am in the morning not trying to always do that but gosh that extends from the halton heart and culture of who danny and ryan are as our founding partners with this company we want to rent your drones we want to get them out working again so you're not missing opportunities to get on what you need to get on in your field so we're going to do it
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
We've got free ice cream at our booth. That's the best part. Now, for those hearing this later, they're going to miss out on this. But for those watching this live right now, booth 1340, free cup of ice cream. Get your ice cream. We won't even make you buy a drone to get a free scoop of ice cream, but we will have a conversation with you at minimum.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
Oh my goodness. It's been a great start, right? And today, obviously with it being Wednesday, we know it's going to air a little bit later here on the network. But my gosh, the weather's been just incredible for us today. And a great opportunity to meet so many folks who have been our customers, who may be our customers, and who are just curious about drones so far.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
So it's been busy all over the grounds today. You're right. The weather's been awesome. If you like hot, humid weather, And sweaty. We're 80 degrees and nice today. Today. We got one nice day.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
John Liebel, CEO of TerraPlex, just joined the company a little bit earlier this year. I know Ryan said he's the lucky one, but no, that's the other way around. I'm lucky to learn with a great team and to be a part of a great team as we usher in this new era of innovation in farming.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
Marketing, right? I mean, what a fun opportunity to get aligned with a great group of folks here. I met him originally in October and kind of assisted with some marketing aspects for launching this new product. And I remember first talking to him. And when the words agricultural spray drone came out on that phone call conversation, I said, what? Wait a minute, what is this?
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
And started diving into this, right? Had an opportunity to meet Danny Osman, Ryan's partner, and our other founding partner earlier, and got to see a drone be demoed and just think, my goodness, this is where it's heading and this is where it's going. And still that awe is out there in the world, right? When folks see this or when they stop by and see this.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Revolutionizing Ag Equipment: Behind the Scenes with Strobel, Terraplex, and Brandt
And I didn't have been fortunate enough to get to know Ryan and and get to know Danny better, meet Charity Schrader, and of course Sue, and start meeting the whole team. And then officially joined the company as CEO in early February. And we're piloting this new era of precision farming and learning as much as we are trying to educate the public in what we do.