What's a relationship worth?

Agriculture, but particularly raising and selling registered seed stock, is an industry built on relationships. Name another sector of any industry that relies purely on marketing around a few days a year, where they bring a product to the consumer, hoping it tickles their fancy. Go on, I’ll wait. There isn’t an opportunity to hedge. There’s not a way to store the product until the market picks up. You meet the seller at the set time and place and learn through immediate supply/demand mechanics whether or not you’ve got something the customer wants. In the registered cattle seed stock business, product is one differentiator, but when gaps in quality narrow and the market gets competitive - relationships make or break you.

I’m not here to harp on you about the importance of relationships. We all know about that song and dance. We have to take time to foster engagement with our customers. We have to have dialogue on what our customer base needs for their operation and we must listen to what we are told. We must build trust, if we sell an animal to someone and things don’t work out, we make it right. We are talking about basic facts that those of us in the cattle business know need happen in order to build a base of customers that come back to us year in and year out.

I’m interested in looking at the relationships we take for granted. I think we have a rare gem of story to tell the world. Those of us raising livestock and/or working land are a rare breed. Two percent of the U.S. population farms or ranches. Folks…that’s a little sliver of pie. Now days, outside our industry, a firm handshake gets you no where. A commitment over a cookie and coffee at the kitchen table…that just does not happen. But it’s a trademark of our business. I sense people want to get back to times when the word of another was all you needed to get the process going. I see that people take vacations and pay ‘camps’ to give them a break and simplify their lives. And while we have hectic times as registered seedstock producers and we certainly are no strangers to technology - we do have something that the larger whole of society yearns for and even pays to experience. Connectivity. We connect to nature, we connect to people and we build relationships that no other industry can say they have. In the hub bub of stock shows, bull sales, dispersals, sale consultants and semen sales along with the day to day work of managing the cow herd and fixing fences, we sometimes loose sight of what really matters. It’s not the sales. It’s not the sale consultants (sorry guys). It’s not the ribbons and awards that we amass.

It is the people and the families in our business that we meet, support and encourage along the way.

Next time we think we’re just ordinary people, doing ordinary work, let’s remember how we treat people and work with life long partners in a business is not something to take for granted. It’s our life’s work and the foundation of our operation. It’s a gem in a world filled with empty promises and fly by night deals.