December 5, 2025 • 52 mins
Episode nineteen of Food, Flowers, & Fun: Visits with farm women from around the world features Zeke Miller of Preferred Mutual Insurance Co. as we discuss:
- Solving problems
- Reimagining farmers as customers
- Taking the kid off the farm without taking the farm out of the kid
- Embracing and redefining agricultural experiences
- Much, much more!
You will love this fun and playful customer experience expert!
About Zeke:
Zeke grew up on a family farm in New York and currently works in Customer Experience for Preferred Mutual Insurance Co. He remains connected to his agricultural roots by growing heritage grains, guest writing for agricultural periodicals, and passing on the stories of the equipment and people who farm our land.
Connect with Zeke at:
Connect with K at:
- Website: https://www.penlightfarmers.com
- YouTube: @k.castrataro3466
- Facebook and Instagram: @penlightfarmers
- Podcast (audio): https://www.penlightfarmers.com/podcast
Podcast (video): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIVBn53rrIsTwS4ag6hH4DHnxG_Lxqt7x
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Are you having fun in your farm life? You can and it
may or may not involve somedancing. Join me as we chat with
customer experience guru ZekeMiller on this episode of Food,
Flowers and Fun.
(00:23):
If you're the woman who does itall, farm work, housework, book
work, homework, getting up atthe break of dawn. This is the
podcast for you.
How
do you get away from the caresof the day, restock, rootstock,
feedstock, seed, stock. Chatwith women around the world to
(00:45):
raise food, flowers and fun withyour host, kay Castrataro,
that's me.
Welcome back to Food, Flowersand Fun: Visits with farm women
and others from around theworld. I am here today, as
always, with the sponsorship ofPen Light for farmers, and we
(01:09):
are helping farmers to createpurposeful lives full of time,
energy and abundance. Don't youwant some of that? Today, we are
so lucky that we have ZekeMiller with us. He is in
customer experience withPreferred Mutual Insurance
Company, and he has got alifetime of ag background, and
(01:32):
so we're going to get to talk tohim about all of his cool ag
related activities. And ZekeWelcome. How are you today?
Thank you. It's an honor to behere. Thanks so much doing well.
Thanks. So why don't you tell usfirst of all, because we spoke
before we got on on the air,about the difference between
(01:52):
customer service and customerexperience. So before we jump
into the Ag stuff, do you mindclear? Clarifying that for
everybody out there so they knowwhat you
do, certainly, and that's agreat place to start, because
experience is really whatdifferentiates and where a lot
of my passion lies is craftingthe real joy and essence of
(02:13):
life. So in a business sense,customer service is the
servicing of transactional itemsthat customers need that you
call the one 800 number, weresolve the issues. Customer
Experience is a holistic journeyof what the customer goes
through, through interactingwith the brand, all the way to
buying and selling and maybemaybe leaving on to another
(02:36):
competitor. So you're kind ofmeasuring how happy or sad, the
customer feels their emotionaljourney throughout. So a little
more holistic in nature, becauseit does cross a lot of
components of the product andservices. Yeah, absolutely. So
it's it really is trying tofigure out what attracts them to
(02:57):
you in the first place, whathappens once you get them in the
door, so to speak, like, arethey having good experiences?
Are they having not so greatexperiences? Are they staying
because price is working forthem, or people are respectful
to them? And then what is itthat drives them to say, I'm
done, because this experienceisn't working for me? And again,
(03:19):
is it price? Is it people? Is itI moved and so I'm no longer,
you know, in a good place tooperate with them. Oh, that's
fascinating. Okay, I love that.So I feel like there is a whole
lot of connection that happensthere with farmers. Because I
feel like sometimes the farmingexperience, it can be, can be
(03:40):
one of those things that we'relike, Hmm, we got sucked into
this, and now we're here, andhow do we stay in this? So why
don't you tell us about yourchildhood, growing up in farming
and what that was like for you.
Sure. Yeah, thanks. And I verymuch. So like focused on how the
passion of the experience andagriculture ties very much
(04:01):
together, and that is where mypassion kind of starts from. The
beginning. Is because I did growup in a small upstate, couple
100 acre farm. We focused on hayand then some field crops, and
we had a few beef cattle. Hawswas very family farm.
Produced well, did well, butlike, like, how any farmer would
(04:22):
know a lot of stresses along thejourney we had. There was seven
of us in the family, and a lotof coordination to get things
done. We did a lot of good work.But also, there was stresses
along the way, but it did set usup. I think all of us kids kind
of are grown up now in ourprofessional lives, but the
family has since sold the farm,moved on, which has its own
emotional journeys, but each ofus have pursued different
(04:44):
components, even of agriculturalthings in our life as we move
forward, my sister stilloperates a farm with her and her
husband up in Malone New York,about 150 acres or so. They
similarly do livestock, and it'sa beautiful experience, but a.
Also recognize that there'sopportunity for I'm particularly
excited to be on this showbecause of the the mental health
(05:06):
focus and that defining thatexperience, because we've seen
some it's been difficult growingup in a family under a lot of
stresses in a farm, and seeingour parents go through some
rougher times and not alwaysunderstanding the economic
implications behind it, but nowon the analytical end, like
seeing where are thereopportunities, where we can we
(05:28):
can make this sales processbetter, or where can we leverage
the things that we've learnedfrom historical like my
grandfather and his farm and theold tractors we run, and each of
those carry a story which says alot about how we could leverage
the experiences we have in lifeto kind of get the most out of
just an art form, even of morethan just a nine to five job,
(05:51):
but a way of life that thatreally brings people for a long
retention time. So I don't knowthere's a lot to it. I still
love farming in the side as ahobby, but my professional
career is also kind ofpiggybacked in a lot of lessons
I've learned even fromchildhood. Yeah, so let's, let's
kind of head back to that, thatbig.
(06:12):
I've started adopting the wordorigin story. I don't know, I
don't know why I'm, like,obsessed with the Marvel Comics
or something in their theirorigin stories, but, but, you
know, I find that,
you know, we really do learn somuch as children, and so much of
who we become is isfoundational, and it's, it's
(06:34):
instilled in us at such a youngage. So what are some of those,
you know, farm characteristicsthat you feel were instilled in
you as a child.
So I like to look at a problemstarting with the framework. And
I think the agriculturalbackground built that incredible
(06:55):
framework that we have aproblem. We're going to solve
it. We're going to get it done.There wasn't so much of like,
oh, we need to outsource, or letme bring in the professionals.
It was, we're here the animalsloose. Get it in. We're here as
somebody. The animals sick. Wegot to get them better. And that
kind of resonates throughoutlife, where both two of my
brothers are engineers, andother ones in software
(07:16):
development, like a lot of thatcritical thinking of, how can I
take a problem, turn it and lookat it from many different
perspectives, and that's where Ifocus. My focus on the
storytelling, looking atperspectives, but just building
that framework of how nothing'simpossible, and it never hurts
to try, because we're going towe can find the solution, and it
(07:37):
can always be different, butthere's a way to attack whatever
it is your equipment that needsto be fixed, or your crop that
needs to begin before therainstorm. There's a way to
solve this, and we're going towork on it together. So just
that tenacity, thatperseverance, that the grit to
like, put your put your elbow tothe job that's carried through
in in I think that frameworkhelps us, even mentally,
(08:00):
emotionally, to not be afraid ofa conflict or an opportunity,
but to use and be creative intools you have to kind of fight
forward.
Yeah, and, you know, let'sreally talk about that for a
second. Because I think you'reright. I think that that
creativity and that tenacity insolving hands on problems, you
(08:22):
know, the problems with thefencing, the problems with the
machinery,
um, the problems with thebuildings, like those kinds of
things. I I agree with you. Ithink farmers are so amazing at
that, and they handle it soincredibly well. And I also feel
(08:44):
like the softer skills of likeinterpersonal communications,
the mental health, the takingcare of oneself, you know, that
kind of stuff. There seems tonot be as much focus on that.
And that seems to be an areawhere we're almost afraid to go.
(09:04):
Sometimes we're like, talk aboutmental health. You know Troy
Bishop, who, who we both know.You know he does the you don't
talk mental health at a grazingconference.
You do now, because Troy hasmade it that we do it. But you
know, so much of that idea ofthis is just a taboo discussion.
(09:29):
So I'm curious what you think isthe disconnect there. Why is it?
Do you think that farmers findit so easy to think creatively
and problem solve about thetactical type things, but not so
much about the relational andthe emotional. And this is a
broad overgeneralization. Imean, there are lots of farmers
(09:49):
who do do this, but there arealso lots that don't, and a
culture, I think that makes itchallenging. So I'm curious as
to your thoughts on that.
Yeah, and I'll tell you a storythat.
Made me think about this verydiscipline. We went a few weeks
ago. I brought my dad out as hisanniversary, and we went to the
classic car museum, and they hadanti tractors on display, and
we're looking at all the dates.And looked at the Model T Ford,
(10:12):
and then the some of the firstEllis Chalmers and Fords and and
I didn't understand why some ofthe first horseless carriages,
1899, 1901 but the first tractorwasn't until, like, 1935 1937
till after Ford developed thewhole assembly line. And I got
thinking, and I asked somefarmers, like, what? What's the
(10:33):
deal? What is the disconnect?And a lot of it has to do with
the agriculture community. Iwouldn't say it's behind, but
it's so invested in itsresources that it doesn't make
economic sense to switch fromyour your build up, your your
horse livestock, you've got yourequipment set. You can't just
switch the next day and get thenice, next shiny object. Or some
(10:56):
other branches of humanity,right? Have a little bit more, a
higher echelon that they have,that that higher level of
expense, they can kind of switchquicker. So there is a little
bit of a social structure suchthat we're a little bit maybe
behind the curve. So, so yeah,we had a time where we have the
information age, right? Was afew years ago. And then before
(11:17):
that, we had the technologyrevolution, dust revolution.
Agriculture is still in thatindustrial revolution. We're
trying to pump out a bunch ofprocesses and things, and that's
the where I grew up. My dad'svery project oriented. But now
we're actually in a customerrevolution, like customers are
the first, including ourselves,our mental health, where we are,
(11:37):
how we care for and that'sdefining more, more than
anything a company's success ishow well we care for each person
and farmers are getting there.But I do think that that's a gap
that we can really you can seethat in those high touch point
interactions, that the people atthe farmers market selling the
artisan bread like that. That'sthe way the future, in a sense,
(11:59):
and how can we harness that inagricultural community, but I do
think it's there's a few things,but a lot of it is where we fit
in the economic field and thenthe social field kind of might
have a little bit moreconservatism in most
agricultural industries. Yeah,and I'm thinking about that
whole customer revolution, andwhere you're talking about the
(12:21):
touch points for the consumer.Because I think that also tends
to be a thing that farmers tendto focus and be very creative in
doing, like I feel like, takingcare of the customer, at least
in my family. You know thatwhole the customer's always
right, the customer was alwaysright. Like you stood there, you
(12:42):
smiled, you apologized, Younodded, like you did all the
things you needed to do to makethat person feel good, even if
they were completely wrong, evenif they were like treating you
like different. But then when itcame to each other, we had no
like that. That's not the waythings work. Like then it's
(13:04):
you're supposed to be polite toyour grandfather or your brother
or your sister or, you know, andso there, and I'm going to take
it out of myself to make surethat my customer has a good
product, that my customer has agood experience, so I might not
get any rest, but my customer isgoing to get a good product. I
(13:27):
might get up at four o'clock inthe morning so I can spray
before the wind kicks up, but mycustomer is going to have clean
apples and clean corn and solike such an again, though it's
like such an interestingdichotomy, where the skills are
there, like a lot of thoseskills are there, and yet we
focus. We we have such a hardtime focusing them inward. I'm
(13:50):
thinking,
and I'm I'm totally thinking onmy feet right here, because you
know what you're talking about.Is really sparking some thoughts
here. But
yeah, so how, how would yourespond to that?
Yeah, that's very interesting.It puts me in the place of going
to a horse stables with myfather growing up, and I could
(14:11):
not, I could not understand,mentally, how come we're taking
this time. And he's talking tothis lady being sweet, enjoying
the scenery, yet at home, wehave to be so fast and punctual,
and it's not time for like idletalk that's very much frowned
upon. We need to what get haywhen the sun's shining. And I
could never understand, like yousaid, that those two skill sets,
(14:34):
but there is a huge salesmanshipcomponent to that. Where you're
going to find the mostprofitability is selling to the
end consumer without themiddleman like that. That's
where you but I never understoodthat as a worker, because, to
your point, we didn't. Thereisn't the focus on our
employees, our family needs thisself value. It's we need to get
this job done at the cost ofwhatever like deal with those
(14:57):
emotional repercussions. But I.
So, yeah, so that is bringingback memories of how that that
transpired. That's interesting.Yeah, I'm, I for me too, like,
I'm just, I'm sitting and I'm,I'm kind of looking at that
interesting, because I think itwas interesting too that you
mentioned the help that youknow, especially if your help
that's been working there for awhile, you become part of the
(15:20):
family. And as soon as you'rehelping, you're part of the
family, then you're justexpected to do, like, it's, you
know, I mean, I was, I was a kidrunning our farm stand. And when
I say a kid, I mean, I startedwhen I was six. So, like, I
literally grew up running thisWell, I mean, at first it was
(15:40):
like one wheelbarrow corn a daythat we sold and, you know, a
box of tomatoes or something. Itwas no big deal, but it ended up
growing into something really,really successful after my mom
got a hold of it and helpedcorral it. But the point being,
I cannot tell you how many daysin the summer I would be sitting
(16:01):
out there under the tree with mylittle picnic table and my corn
and my vegetables, and everybodywould go up for lunch, and I
would sit there under the tree,and I would wait for lunch, and
the lunch wouldn't come. Thelunch wouldn't come.
Eventually, actually, usuallythe lunch came, but like my
(16:25):
parents, there were times my momwas like, I'm sorry, I forgot
about you. And I'm like, youforgot about me. I'm your oldest
child. I am the first grandchildon both sides of the family. How
do you forget me?
And I'm like, the loudest one ofthe family. So you would think
that my absence would be missed,
(16:47):
but no, no,
but I think it holds to thatidea that it's like we're
expected to just do what needsto be done, and it's okay if,
and at that time, you know,yeah, I was upset about it, but
I didn't look at it as anythingreally awful. But I look back on
it now and I'm like, Huh, that'sa really interesting dynamic
(17:09):
that we just kind of assume thisis, this is the way that things
work. So yeah, so some of thismental stress is why you decided
not to farm Am I right?
Yes, 100% Exactly. So growingup, I realized, like, there's a
lot of work and energy to makevery little, like,
(17:29):
profitability. And as I growwith my family, I want to have
that time where we can go toDisney World, and we don't need
to, like, close a farm for aweek. We can budget so we can
whatever, go to a concert, andwe're not like we can still go
out to eat a few days, but thebalance, it's not all about
money. But yeah, I think that'sintriguing, that the strengths
can become our weaknesses. Asagriculture, there's such an
(17:53):
opportunity to be you're soclose to nature, to the land,
you're owning your ownindependence, that you can you
can leverage that, and we canrun gung ho, but meanwhile, we
could kind of trample on whatI'm saying is, my passion now is
a little bit more on theexperience. Like, have fun play.
(18:13):
I love, like, model tractors,like, like modeling something,
that's what I do with thecustomer experience, is, how
could this be better? How can Ihave fun with this idea? And we
do that in agriculture 100% butbecause we own so much of that
world, there's a tendency torush into the project
initiatives, and maybe overstepin the process, the people along
(18:37):
the way. And that's wherethere's some opportunity, where
we could, we can modify that,that model, that structure of
how we
enhance the experience, not justof our customers, but also our
employees as well. Yeah, and I,you know, what I notice is that
farmers can keep doing this,taking care of others for a
certain period of time, and thensooner or later, something
(19:00):
breaks, and when that somethingbreaks,
it's often almost irreversible,without, like, huge
intervention. It's, it's kind oflike a broken chassis, you know,
it's, we're not replacing atire. We have to, like, replace
the complete undercarriage ofthe way that the the machine
(19:22):
operates. And so some of us findthat as physical illnesses, you
know, I think farmers suffermore from some physical ailments
than they need to, becausethey're actually stress induced.
And it can be mental health, youknow. I mean, we know that
suicide is ridiculously high inthe agricultural community. But
(19:44):
also, I think those fragmentedrelationships, because if, if
everybody's always tired andeverybody is always focusing on
something outside of the familyand the and the relationships in
between, that's going to take.
Whole and so, you know, mypassion is really about trying
(20:05):
to help people to look at thisand say it doesn't have to be
this way. And I think I'm reallylike in this moment, realizing
how much those skills arealready there, and that we just
need to redirect them a littlebit and to validate not that
farmers don't have these skills,but that farmers don't apply
these skills to themselves. Andthen if we could help them to,
(20:28):
you know, look at themselves asjust as valuable as their
customers, then we we wouldprobably be able to support
their well being a whole lotbetter. And I gotta tell you, it
does end up helping themeconomically, relationally, like
all of that stuff does change,like it really, really does. So
(20:49):
I find that fascinating thatyou've mentioned that, yeah, and
you said that so well that wealready have those Toolworks.
And it's being it's being shownlike, if we could change our
perspective from thefrustration, from the heat, from
the energy, and put it into thesafety the building. What I'm
saying is we're greatstorytellers. We're great
(21:13):
inspirational leaders in theagricultural field, because we
have to, and because we're rightthere with nature, we see it's
animals grow, and it's, it'svery volatile. How what could
happen? We're at the mercy ofthe elements, right? So the
connection to a supernaturalforce and and that kind of leads
us to we, we're good at seeingthings from different angles. So
(21:34):
can we take that moment and lookat this problem from from a
different lens, and say, How canI how can I close this gap, and
how can I help focus on on oursafety, our well being, yet
still deliver that superiorproduct? And I think a lot of
that is embrace the fun of it,right? And that's when we had
(21:54):
the greatest thing as a familyin a farm, like going out in the
summer field and sitting on thehay wagon and seeing the
scenery, humming a song to thetune of the valor, running like
that's the thing we want, evenin today's age we're trying to
get in the insurance world, orwherever we are, we want
customers and employees toembrace the experience they're
in. And it's just like you said,it's a word shift, it's
(22:16):
semantics. It's It's not that Ihave to do this. It's, I want to
do this. I get to do this. I I'minvested in in a better future
and in myself and my family. Anda lot of that is that defining
that experience. You know, howcan we pitch this in a way that
now penetrates into my heartlike I believe what I'm doing
for a core being, and we'regoing to get there, and it might
(22:38):
take some hard work, and I'mused to hard work, but it's hard
work, not at my detriment, butfor my progress. Yeah, yeah.
And, and so let me ask you, as acustomer experience expert, what
are some of the little thingsthat work to support people's
customer experience, and how doyou think that farmers can
(23:00):
integrate them for themselves,you know, I mean, yes, farmers,
listening to this out there, wewant you to give your customers
the best customer experience,because that's good for your
business. Totally want that. AndI think that good customer
experience starts with a goodfarmer experience, and we can
shift that like I think what yousaid about perspective is spot
(23:24):
on that you can have two peoplein exactly the same situation,
and depending upon how they viewit, they're going to be happy or
they're going to be miserable.And so my belief is, let's go
for happy boys and girls like
because once we do that, we havemore energy. We are able to be
(23:45):
more creative. We're moreproductive because we're not as
tired like the benefits of justhaving a good attitude change us
so so talk to us about how thatlooks in customer experience,
and how farmers can maybe startlooking at themselves as their
own customers a little bit.
And you're right, it does startwithin. We need to embrace
(24:07):
ourselves and make sure we ourown experience is unified and
positive, and that translates tocustomers. So yeah, I mean some
simple things we do use acustomer's name and listen to
that, make sure that they feelheard, so use common words of
okay and what? How else doesthat make you feel and and what?
What else before you jump to asolution, but the biggest
(24:30):
take in customer experience, andthis might relate to larger
farms or industries, is thebreakup of an experience. So
it's the misunderstandingbetween the silos so this,
nobody comes to work and says,Oh, I want to give my customers
a hard time. Everybody believesthey're doing the best, but how
many times that we call the callcenter and we're bounced all
(24:50):
over? It's because of the thefrom a higher strategic lens,
we're not connecting the dotsthe people, the legal team might
not even be aware.
Are that the rules they puttogether, even though they think
are great, are actually makingit very hard for this customer
over here to get their theirwire fixed, because we told our
people not to touch theirmachines, it did. Well, there's
(25:12):
a little communicationmisconnect. So can we find even
those little things like, Oh, Ididn't realize that the way I
wrote this bill to useconfusing, because to me, it
makes sense, but it's thatchanging that perspective from a
customer lens, how does thatlook? So granted, speaking of
ourselves, we kind of know howwe look at the world, but do we
know? Do we I'm gonna, I'mgonna, I'm gonna ask, do we
(25:37):
really know how we look at theworld, like
there is a degree ofintrospection there that I'm not
sure, I'm not sure we all havedone that enough to say, How
does my perspective influencehow I interpret what I see?
(25:59):
I'm, I'm I'm curious.
Because I think, I think some ofus do. I think some of some of
us you know, those of us who've,
those of us who've hadsituations where you've spent a
decade or more in mental healthfields for various and sundry
reasons, you start to do anawful lot of this. Some of us
(26:20):
who are writers and really areinto that journaling and self
like, why do I do what I dostuff I love that? Like, I just
eat that up. Why am I angry atmy son when he does this, but
not when my daughter does it?What? What is the difference
there? But I'm not sure that wealways do that. So tell me if
(26:42):
that happens in customerexperience, where we think we
know how we're viewingsomething, but we're missing
something. Does that make sense?
No, that says it exactly right.And that's the whole concept of
modeling, and that's what we dowith like gamification and
playing with toys, right? Is wewe try this scenario out, and
then we step back and realize,oh, that worked in a completely
(27:04):
different way than I thought itwould. I had thought if I
lowered our prices, people wouldbe happier, but I didn't realize
that it that's not the keydriver, even though we ask
people, What makes you happier,and that's what they said.
There's that's still true, butit's not the truth.
Oh my gosh. Okay, I love mybrain is exploding. Zeke, it's
(27:27):
totally exploding right now,because that's what happens,
like when I, when I talk tofarmers, and like, we're, we're
doing some consulting, and theytell me the problem is this. And
so I'll ask a few morequestions. And then I'll be
like, is the problem that? Orwhat about this thing over here
(27:51):
that is seems to be coming upmore than this other issue, and
I think finances is one of thosethings for farmers that it's a
real easy blame, becausefinances are tough. Like very
few farmers do not wish they hadmore money.
There are not many who do. Andyet, scientifically, it's been
(28:14):
proven that once you're meetingyour expenses, having more money
doesn't make you happier at all.So whether you've got $8 billion
or you just paid the bills forthe month, and you're, you know,
you're out of money in the bank,but, but your bills are paid,
the happiness level doesn'tincrease, if all things are
(28:37):
equal. So that makes you wonderif we think it's money,
what is it really because if wethink it's money, but maybe it's
not money, what is it? So, whatwere some of the other things
driving those customers to bediscontent when it wasn't the
thing they thought it was?
(28:58):
So one journey that I'll bringattention to is in the claims
journey. So a lot of customers,we ask them, in the Claim
Transaction, they smash theircar, hit a deer this time of
year, right? And so how's itgoing? How do you feel? Oh, this
is terrible. I crashed my car inthe car is sitting here in the
shop for a week, and I don'tknow what's going on. I don't
have a payment. I don't know ifit's total loss. I got shop for
(29:20):
new car. We asked them the verynext day, or two days later,
their claim was closed. They gotthe chat. They got how'd it go?
Oh, it was great. A wonderfultransaction. Everything's fine
in the differences could just behours, right? There could be a
moment in life where we're,we're feel as a customer, and it
(29:41):
doesn't feel good. I don't quiteknow the answers. I never had a
claim before. I know who'ssupposed to call, how it's going
to work, and the next day,checks in the mail. Here's what
you have to do. Okay, I'm on.I'm past that hurdle in my life.
I'm on to this next thing. Iforget about that negative
experience, because that waspart of the junk I didn't like.
Hit in the D yard, and it wasnot fun. But look this that I
(30:04):
have a policy, because myinsurance company helps me do
this, and now I have to help soit does depend where we are in a
journey and to see how we feelany particular point in our
goals. Like to minimize thosebumps. But at the end of the
day, can we provide a solutionthat in we've seen this several
times. Customers complain thatbill's complicated, hard, but
(30:26):
when they're on the phone withsomeone and someone cares and
listens and oh, well, you justlook at line three and that's
Oh, they were so nice. They'reso friendly. I felt so happy
that you cared. So that buildsthat connection and encourages
that retention and loyalty tothe customer, because the
problem is resolved. And notonly resolved, we built a
relationship, we fulfilled apromise. We were true to our
(30:50):
name at the end, and it had acomplete resolution. So yeah,
can that translate in thefarming industry 100%
How can we we're going to haveups and downs, but how can we
have the moment of finality, themoment of truth, where in the
essence of our true beingshines? Yep, there was this
thing that happened, but at thecore, I really care, and I
(31:12):
provide the best whatever in theindustry, yeah, okay, so I just
love that phrase, the essence ofour true being shines like
there's wow, like that, right?There is poetry. And I am
thinking about,
you know, at first I was like,well, the problem's resolved, so
of course, they're feelinghappier, because now, you know,
before they were they were fullof angst, they were uncertain.
(31:35):
They didn't know what was goingon. And then we get certainty,
and certainty makes us feelgood. But then I was thinking
about situations that I've hadwhere I had a customer service
or customer experience, I shouldsay, and the service was
amazing, and my problem wasstill not resolved, and yet I
(31:55):
was able to get off the phoneand have all those other
feelings that you said that, youknow what? That person couldn't
solve my problem, but they werereally nice, and they were
really compassionate, and they,you know, they told me that I
was being nice, even though,like, I'll get on the phone
sometimes I will admit, like, Idon't like to be a jerk to
people, but there are timeswhere I'm frustrated and I get
(32:18):
on the phone and I'm like, I'mso sorry. You have to deal with
me right now. I know thisproblem is not your fault, and
I'm afraid I'm in a really badmood
and I might be a little witchyto you, and as soon as you even
just say that, the person on theother end automatically kind of
kicks in and is like, oh, it'snice of you to even acknowledge
(32:39):
that. And then I'm like, oh,it's nice of you to acknowledge
that. I'm acknowledging that.And then I go from my kids are
like, I thought you were upset,and now you're like, telling
jokes and exchanging lifestories with the the customer
service people. And I'm like,Yeah, well, because they were
nice to me, because, and I meanto to put credit where credit is
(32:59):
due, I was also honest aboutwhere I was at, and I think this
goes back to seeing our lensesand saying we have to be
we have to start by being trueabout what we're experiencing.
But I'm also hearing that likereflective listening, that
listening to each other andsaying, I see that you are
(33:22):
frustrated. And I think, howmany times in a in a farm family
or a farm business, like, Howdifferent could it be if we get
frustrated with our partner,with our kids and any anybody,
our employees, and we take abreath and say,
I don't like this. I'm I'm in abad mood, and I am going to take
(33:47):
a moment and tell that person Ican see that you're frustrated
about this too. So how do wesolve this together? As opposed
to, I told you 8 million timesyou gotta hit this button before
you do that button, or we losethe transaction.
And and it might be true. Andthen I would also say, as a
(34:10):
consultant, I'd be like, Excuseme, do you have a Do you have a
list of job aids, a job aidthere that says, press this
button, this button and thisbutton, because that could solve
this
but this is where I think thiswhole, like, sometimes we need
that external person to providea little bit of perspective.
Yes, right? And you've definedperfectly that a de escalation
(34:33):
and setting expectations to theupfront. Can we say, be a little
vulnerable, be human, say who weare, and then as things go
through the journeys, what aresome ways we could deescalate
and bring it down? Which, whichis excellent customer servicing
skills, yeah. Can you give me afew other deescalation skills?
Because I'm a big fan of deescalation. I have a child who
(34:56):
was very aggressive. No,seriously, like my son was
super, super.
Impressive when we were when hewas younger, the things we've
gone through with that boy andso de escalation is, like, it's
kind of second nature to me now,because I've spent eight years
intensively learning how to deescalate conflict, and it always
(35:17):
starts with mom, like the firstperson it always starts with is,
I gotta calm myself down,because if I'm agitated, things
go bad.
But tell us, tell us some of thede escalation skills. I'm sure
you've been trained in those.Yes, yeah, sure. No, that makes
sense. I mean, there's avariety, but there's things you
(35:38):
don't do, like you don'tdisagree and say no. And there's
things you do do like you try toagree. I see you're upset. That
sounds like that was a badexperience from your lens. And
then you solution, you offer, asopposed to pinpointing a
customer, this is what we'regoing to do, provide options. I
can see you're upset with theway this bill is, would you like
(36:00):
we have a couple options. If wedid the full pay, there's a 10%
discount, but if you did thispartial pay, you'd only have
this much due today. You couldchange coverages and speak to
your agent. Would that besomething we could schedule in
the future? You providedifferent opportunities so the
person still feels in charge,and you'd let the person be
heard. You Well, know a lot ofpeople once they vent, then they
(36:22):
relax a little. They needed toget that frustration out. Know
that they're heard, so you allowthat space. We don't rush
customers off the phone. Andthere is a certain business
strategy too. It might not workin farming, but sometimes
customers feel better when theykind of, I don't say, bounce
around, but they feel betterwhen they're moved up a chain.
So sometimes they say, Hey, Iwant to talk to your supervisor.
(36:44):
Maybe we don't have asupervisor, but we have another
employee next to us who alsodoes specializes. And so some
once they go to that nextperson, sometimes the customer
is like, Okay, I really reamedJenny out over there, but you're
going to help me. Let me justlevel set. And their tones way
down here again. So sometimes itis like changing that
environment, right? Changing whowe're talking to in the setting.
(37:07):
And I think that could relate toeven our work life as well in
the farm. Yeah,
yeah. So let's, let's do some, Idon't know, I feel like
brainstorming right now. So I'mthinking about, we're on the
farm. Let's think of a typicalescalation kind of thing. So
you've got you ever, had youever seen help that breaks in a
(37:32):
piece of equipment?
The temptation is to scream andyell at them because they broke
the piece of equipment. And Iwant to start farmers and say,
You're absolutely right to befrustrated and angry in that
(37:52):
situation, because, yes, it'sbad when somebody breaks your
equipment. And deescalating thesituation will probably keep it
from going from bad to worse,because oftentimes the problem
is not quite as bad as we thinkit is in the moment. Like, how
many times have we heard thatsickening crunch when we backed
(38:15):
up and we didn't see somethingbehind us and we thought, Uh oh,
I got I just ruined my vehicle.And then we pull forward and
it's like, oh, okay, I scratchedthe paint. It's fine because
we've got these great newbumpers that, like, pop in and
all I have to do is, like, blowon them and they pop back out
again and it's, it's golden. So,you know, so, so maybe take them
(38:37):
away from the equipment beforeyou even have a conversation
like, just say, let's, let's getaway from here. And you do a
couple of things. You do somemovement which makes your body
feel better. You breathe alittle bit. And then you've
changed the location so you canstart to have that conversation.
And then, instead of yelling andscreaming, you can say, can you
(38:58):
tell me what went wrong?
What happened?
So then we're teaching asopposed to just punishing, and
then the person who committedthe crime
feels a little bit moreresponsible to you because
you've been so kind to them thatnow they're like, Oh, that was
(39:21):
really dumb. I don't ever wantto do that again. And you didn't
have to yell at them. The bossfeels better because they knew
they control, controlled theirtemper. So I think it, I think
there's a lot of stuff going onthere that that farmers can use
from a customer experienceperspective. I'm, I'm loving
that, absolutely loving that.So, so I'm going to kind of jump
(39:47):
ahead to where you are now,because you have said that you
do a little bit of farming now,but you're not, you're not a
full time farmer anymore. Sotell me about the type of
farming, farming that you do,and what that's like and and
what you see in your.
Future as far as agriculture?
Sure, yeah. And I think an oldtime friend of mine would say,
you can take the farm out of theboy, but you can't take the boy
(40:09):
out of the farm. Or vice versa.Basically, it's in the blood.
And yeah. So I've, I've alwayskind of had a few little cheaper
goats around, even a littlequarter acre lot in town, or now
got a few acres out in the endof it, at End Road, like a
little spot to have little herdof we tried a little bit of
dairy Malcolm, mix some icecream. So the kind of
(40:30):
homesteading almost, I do have alittle tractor, a couple
tractors. I work up a littleplot of land and put in some
heritage weed or some maybe someblue popcorn. Just try a couple
different kind of weird breedsof
local horticulture that I couldgrow in the area. But yeah, in
the future, I definitely might.And so I've got a daughter,
(40:51):
Vivian, she wants a goat in thespring, so we'll probably have a
little goat to kind of have inthe yard to chew off the weeds
I know, like the what the worksinvolved. Who likes to go out in
the winter and break the ice offthe pails and all this? But
there's something so beautifulabout just seeing nature and
being part of that. And formyself, personally, I still very
(41:12):
involved in the agriculturalcommunity. So even, like this
year, I have an off year, and Idon't have livestock in the barn
right now. I've got rid of mychickens for a bit, but I love
going, like to our littleharvest festivals and our
antique tractor shows and theSpring Festival. And you kind of
connect with other farmers andhow, how you see the life
(41:34):
journey, you see the generationsof people still keeping the
farming traditions alive inthose stories. Means so much to
me, because I remember thosetimes, and I still visit my
sister's farm in support upthere. Sometimes it's a project
we're doing. I'll run up toMalone and help for a weekend,
but yeah, very much involved inthe in the community, and kind
(41:55):
of having an ear to the groundof Where did where's the history
of this, this particular land oror this family, and how did it
evolve, and where are we going?But, yeah, I definitely have a
connection to just seeinganimals and plants continue to
thrive and then be part of thatfarmers market community, just
the people. It's amazing who youmeet. I think there's a
(42:17):
monastery in our area. Theyraise some sheep or something
like, Who would have thought?And I found him in the in the
farmer's market, but, yeah, youmeet all kinds of fun people.
Oh, that is awesome. That isabsolutely awesome. I love that.
I'm like, Boy, I've just goneback, like, how many hundreds of
years to, like, when monasterieswere all self supporting. And,
(42:40):
you know, it wasn't Wow, it waslike a whole community, you
know, it really was. They grewtheir own food, they took care
of all of their own needs. Like,wow, so, so fascinating.
And there was something that yousaid, Oh, stories. So, you know,
story is one of the things thatI've always been passionate
(43:00):
about, and it's, it's why Ireally love doing this.
You know, having this containeris because, you know, I've said
before, I always meet thesefarmers and I want to tell their
stories. Because as soon as Istart talking to anybody, I'm
like, Oh my gosh, your story isamazing. Like, we should, we
should definitely share yourstory with the world, and now I
(43:23):
have the opportunity to do itand like the the way that I used
to do it, when I was writing alot for country folk, and doing
like, which you also havewritten for country folks.
You know that it's a very timeconsuming process if you're
going to do it right, you knowyou got to go out to the farm,
go spend an hour talking to thefarmer, take your photos. Come
(43:44):
home. Take another hour or twoto, you know, accumulate all
your stuff and put it togetherand write an article and send it
off. And, you know, all thatstuff. And this is like one hour
we sit down. Now, it does take awhile to go and do post
production stuff. Althoughanybody who watches my show
knows we don't do a whole lot ofpost production.
(44:07):
If it's too much more thansplice put together, I don't do
it.
So anybody out there who who islooking for, you know, an
opportunity to work on your techskills, and you want to, you
want to come and talk it. I'mlooking for support there, but,
(44:29):
but anyway, I think that wholestory thing is so critical and
and so when you were writing forcountry folk, tell us what kind
of stories you were writing,what articles were you putting
in, yeah, so stories tell somuch, and it gets the essence of
who we are as humanity. So thatwas kind of my niche focus. Was
more community event in thestory behind. So we did an
(44:52):
article for, there's an antiquepower in Motor Museum, and they
have a presentation for in theboth the Spring Show.
In the fall show for the comingof the farming year, and then
the harvest season, we bring outa bunch of once they had the
group from Syracuse, New York,that does all the orange group
that does all the elves,Chandler has brought in. And
(45:12):
these people I've talked to, oneman, he had over 40 tractors. He
restored, like shiny pain, like,it's incredible the collections
people have in their focus. Butlike each of those tractors,
tells a story about a uniquepart of our modern day history,
where the manufacturer comes outwith this thing, but real people
use this. And they for a littleand they got the belts that run
(45:33):
the corn, these old pulleys andand, yes, the safety was a
thing, but, but it shows howthings have evolved. So we see
both a technological component,but also how that affects
people. I guess a specificstory. There was a clock Museum.
They never heard of such athing, but this gentleman had
devoted his life to fixingwatches and clocks. And there
(45:55):
was an old clock back from, Iwant to say, like almost
revolutionary times, and itshowed like the change from the
Roman calendar to the Gregoriancalendar, it had the difference
of the of the months names, fromJanus to January. I couldn't
believe it, but his daughters,he passed away, and his daughter
is, like, memorialized him,yeah. But, like, this is a story
(46:15):
right in central New York,upstate, further upstate,
Northern New York, yeah, thatyou would never know about, but
people are bringing this, thisheritage, to life and sharing it
with the world. And to me,that's just so special, because
we work every day in the fieldsand devoting our life to trying
to make a living right off ofthe earth we live on. Yet every
(46:36):
generation has a passion thatthey speak to and now that can
be shared with others. And Ijust love that component. So
that that was one component,I've written a few little
articles, kind of what we talkedabout, about CX customer
experience, yeah, when I'm on inthe shop at the farm and doing
this, how does that relate to acustomer in its interest, in the
(46:57):
same psychological components,how what we think about drives
those same decision makingprocesses. So in the business,
you know, we think about howcustomers think and care and
where they're coming from. Well,we have to go through that
ourselves in whatever processwe're doing and the farm to stay
motivated, to stay involved, tonot give up, to gain that
resiliency. And that's whatwe're all about. On the business
(47:19):
side, is customer churn,retention, the opposite churn,
like, how resilient are theywith a brand? Yeah, well, we
have to believe in our ownbrand. In the agriculture
community, believe in ourselves,and that's what's going to keep
us in business. So what are thethings that you tell yourself?
What are the things that you howdo you change that language?
Right? We talked about changeperspective shift. How do we
(47:40):
change from boy, this isterrible, yeah, the narrative to
like, Oh, this is inspiring.Here's an opportunity in that's
what we work the problems wework with every day, with
customers. So I focused on moreseasonal components as we go
through the season. This is whatit reminds me of here, and this
reminds me here, and see thekind of parallelism. But yeah,
agriculture is a fascinatinglandscape to kind of paint the
(48:02):
picture of some experiencemetrics of our life against,
yeah, absolutely. And I'm alsothinking, you know, as you were
talking about how we had tobelieve in ourselves as farmers,
and we have to believe in ourbrand. And I'm also thinking
that the core has to start withour hearts, like what it is that
(48:24):
our passion is and our purposeis, and that the farmers who
are, and I would say, anybody,anybody who is working out of
their passion, out of theirpurpose, they can connect so
deeply with that, and they havethat sense that what they're
doing has meaning because it hasmeaning for them, and therefore
(48:46):
they can bring that honestly tosomebody and say, this has
meaning for you too, like Iknow, when I first started
consulting with farmers, I hadthis fear that I was not going
To give them enough like that Iwasn't going to be able to
deliver results for them, and itwasn't until I've had clients
(49:08):
and I'm delivering results. Andthe stuff that I knew in my
head, I was like, I know thiswill work. I know it'll work,
but I needed that confirmationout here to be like, yes, okay,
this. This works for people likewe there's, there's really
something there that keeps,keeps driving the action
(49:29):
forward. And I think forfarmers, it's super important
that they really dig into whatthat is for them, because you
can have a financiallysuccessful farm by chasing the
latest trends,
but that's probably not going tobe the thing that keeps you
satisfied and helps you throughthe hard times in your business.
(49:52):
It might take you to a certainlevel, but I really do believe
that when the hardest timescome, it's it's not the shiny
objects.
It's the, it's the core herethat, you know, that diamond
that's in there that stillhasn't been cut apart and and
polished up. It looks like it'sjust a rock.
(50:13):
Oh my gosh, Zeke. And I'm, I'vehad just so much fun talking to
you. And I'm, I've, I've got totell you, like my brain has
definitely just been
it's opened up so much to thisidea of the customer experience
and its relationship to farming,and also how the farmers are
(50:36):
doing it so intuitively, and nowthey just need to. They need to
care for themselves the way theycare for their customers. Really
like if, if they could justshift that perspective again and
value themselves the same waythat they do their customers, we
would be able to to give them somuch more life satisfaction. And
(50:57):
I, I'm really, I'm really struckby that, so I want to thank you
for that. And before we go, Ihave one question that I ask
every guest on food, flowers and
fun, if you had the opportunityto give farmers one piece of
advice that you felt everyfarmer should know, what would
that be?
(51:17):
So I think you captured it inthe last word of this podcast
was was fun, like, life's astage. Get out and dance. And I
think that's a big thing. Don'tbe afraid, express yourself, and
that means so much to people.Oh, that's great. I dance badly,
but I love to dance, so I'mgonna leave us with that
(51:41):
everybody out there get up andgo out and dance, and we will
see you next time on food,flowers and fun. Bye
farmers, calling our show is allfun. Goodbye, farewell. So long
Adieu, see you next week. Sametime, same place for Food,
(52:02):
Flowers and Fun, go in peace.
Visit us at www.penlightfarmers.com
Are you having fun in your farm life? You can and it
may or may not involve somedancing. Join me as we chat with
customer experience guru ZekeMiller on this episode of Food,
Flowers and Fun.
(00:23):
If you're the woman who does itall, farm work, housework, book
work, homework, getting up atthe break of dawn. This is the
podcast for you.
How
do you get away from the caresof the day, restock, rootstock,
feedstock, seed, stock. Chatwith women around the world to
(00:45):
raise food, flowers and fun withyour host, kay Castrataro,
that's me.
Welcome back to Food, Flowersand Fun: Visits with farm women
and others from around theworld. I am here today, as
always, with the sponsorship ofPen Light for farmers, and we
(01:09):
are helping farmers to createpurposeful lives full of time,
energy and abundance. Don't youwant some of that? Today, we are
so lucky that we have ZekeMiller with us. He is in
customer experience withPreferred Mutual Insurance
Company, and he has got alifetime of ag background, and
(01:32):
so we're going to get to talk tohim about all of his cool ag
related activities. And ZekeWelcome. How are you today?
Thank you. It's an honor to behere. Thanks so much doing well.
Thanks. So why don't you tell usfirst of all, because we spoke
before we got on on the air,about the difference between
(01:52):
customer service and customerexperience. So before we jump
into the Ag stuff, do you mindclear? Clarifying that for
everybody out there so they knowwhat you
do, certainly, and that's agreat place to start, because
experience is really whatdifferentiates and where a lot
of my passion lies is craftingthe real joy and essence of
(02:13):
life. So in a business sense,customer service is the
servicing of transactional itemsthat customers need that you
call the one 800 number, weresolve the issues. Customer
Experience is a holistic journeyof what the customer goes
through, through interactingwith the brand, all the way to
buying and selling and maybemaybe leaving on to another
(02:36):
competitor. So you're kind ofmeasuring how happy or sad, the
customer feels their emotionaljourney throughout. So a little
more holistic in nature, becauseit does cross a lot of
components of the product andservices. Yeah, absolutely. So
it's it really is trying tofigure out what attracts them to
(02:57):
you in the first place, whathappens once you get them in the
door, so to speak, like, arethey having good experiences?
Are they having not so greatexperiences? Are they staying
because price is working forthem, or people are respectful
to them? And then what is itthat drives them to say, I'm
done, because this experienceisn't working for me? And again,
(03:19):
is it price? Is it people? Is itI moved and so I'm no longer,
you know, in a good place tooperate with them. Oh, that's
fascinating. Okay, I love that.So I feel like there is a whole
lot of connection that happensthere with farmers. Because I
feel like sometimes the farmingexperience, it can be, can be
(03:40):
one of those things that we'relike, Hmm, we got sucked into
this, and now we're here, andhow do we stay in this? So why
don't you tell us about yourchildhood, growing up in farming
and what that was like for you.
Sure. Yeah, thanks. And I verymuch. So like focused on how the
passion of the experience andagriculture ties very much
(04:01):
together, and that is where mypassion kind of starts from. The
beginning. Is because I did growup in a small upstate, couple
100 acre farm. We focused on hayand then some field crops, and
we had a few beef cattle. Hawswas very family farm.
Produced well, did well, butlike, like, how any farmer would
(04:22):
know a lot of stresses along thejourney we had. There was seven
of us in the family, and a lotof coordination to get things
done. We did a lot of good work.But also, there was stresses
along the way, but it did set usup. I think all of us kids kind
of are grown up now in ourprofessional lives, but the
family has since sold the farm,moved on, which has its own
emotional journeys, but each ofus have pursued different
(04:44):
components, even of agriculturalthings in our life as we move
forward, my sister stilloperates a farm with her and her
husband up in Malone New York,about 150 acres or so. They
similarly do livestock, and it'sa beautiful experience, but a.
Also recognize that there'sopportunity for I'm particularly
excited to be on this showbecause of the the mental health
(05:06):
focus and that defining thatexperience, because we've seen
some it's been difficult growingup in a family under a lot of
stresses in a farm, and seeingour parents go through some
rougher times and not alwaysunderstanding the economic
implications behind it, but nowon the analytical end, like
seeing where are thereopportunities, where we can we
(05:28):
can make this sales processbetter, or where can we leverage
the things that we've learnedfrom historical like my
grandfather and his farm and theold tractors we run, and each of
those carry a story which says alot about how we could leverage
the experiences we have in lifeto kind of get the most out of
just an art form, even of morethan just a nine to five job,
(05:51):
but a way of life that thatreally brings people for a long
retention time. So I don't knowthere's a lot to it. I still
love farming in the side as ahobby, but my professional
career is also kind ofpiggybacked in a lot of lessons
I've learned even fromchildhood. Yeah, so let's, let's
kind of head back to that, thatbig.
(06:12):
I've started adopting the wordorigin story. I don't know, I
don't know why I'm, like,obsessed with the Marvel Comics
or something in their theirorigin stories, but, but, you
know, I find that,
you know, we really do learn somuch as children, and so much of
who we become is isfoundational, and it's, it's
(06:34):
instilled in us at such a youngage. So what are some of those,
you know, farm characteristicsthat you feel were instilled in
you as a child.
So I like to look at a problemstarting with the framework. And
I think the agriculturalbackground built that incredible
(06:55):
framework that we have aproblem. We're going to solve
it. We're going to get it done.There wasn't so much of like,
oh, we need to outsource, or letme bring in the professionals.
It was, we're here the animalsloose. Get it in. We're here as
somebody. The animals sick. Wegot to get them better. And that
kind of resonates throughoutlife, where both two of my
brothers are engineers, andother ones in software
(07:16):
development, like a lot of thatcritical thinking of, how can I
take a problem, turn it and lookat it from many different
perspectives, and that's where Ifocus. My focus on the
storytelling, looking atperspectives, but just building
that framework of how nothing'simpossible, and it never hurts
to try, because we're going towe can find the solution, and it
(07:37):
can always be different, butthere's a way to attack whatever
it is your equipment that needsto be fixed, or your crop that
needs to begin before therainstorm. There's a way to
solve this, and we're going towork on it together. So just
that tenacity, thatperseverance, that the grit to
like, put your put your elbow tothe job that's carried through
in in I think that frameworkhelps us, even mentally,
(08:00):
emotionally, to not be afraid ofa conflict or an opportunity,
but to use and be creative intools you have to kind of fight
forward.
Yeah, and, you know, let'sreally talk about that for a
second. Because I think you'reright. I think that that
creativity and that tenacity insolving hands on problems, you
(08:22):
know, the problems with thefencing, the problems with the
machinery,
um, the problems with thebuildings, like those kinds of
things. I I agree with you. Ithink farmers are so amazing at
that, and they handle it soincredibly well. And I also feel
(08:44):
like the softer skills of likeinterpersonal communications,
the mental health, the takingcare of oneself, you know, that
kind of stuff. There seems tonot be as much focus on that.
And that seems to be an areawhere we're almost afraid to go.
(09:04):
Sometimes we're like, talk aboutmental health. You know Troy
Bishop, who, who we both know.You know he does the you don't
talk mental health at a grazingconference.
You do now, because Troy hasmade it that we do it. But you
know, so much of that idea ofthis is just a taboo discussion.
(09:29):
So I'm curious what you think isthe disconnect there. Why is it?
Do you think that farmers findit so easy to think creatively
and problem solve about thetactical type things, but not so
much about the relational andthe emotional. And this is a
broad overgeneralization. Imean, there are lots of farmers
(09:49):
who do do this, but there arealso lots that don't, and a
culture, I think that makes itchallenging. So I'm curious as
to your thoughts on that.
Yeah, and I'll tell you a storythat.
Made me think about this verydiscipline. We went a few weeks
ago. I brought my dad out as hisanniversary, and we went to the
classic car museum, and they hadanti tractors on display, and
we're looking at all the dates.And looked at the Model T Ford,
(10:12):
and then the some of the firstEllis Chalmers and Fords and and
I didn't understand why some ofthe first horseless carriages,
1899, 1901 but the first tractorwasn't until, like, 1935 1937
till after Ford developed thewhole assembly line. And I got
thinking, and I asked somefarmers, like, what? What's the
(10:33):
deal? What is the disconnect?And a lot of it has to do with
the agriculture community. Iwouldn't say it's behind, but
it's so invested in itsresources that it doesn't make
economic sense to switch fromyour your build up, your your
horse livestock, you've got yourequipment set. You can't just
switch the next day and get thenice, next shiny object. Or some
(10:56):
other branches of humanity,right? Have a little bit more, a
higher echelon that they have,that that higher level of
expense, they can kind of switchquicker. So there is a little
bit of a social structure suchthat we're a little bit maybe
behind the curve. So, so yeah,we had a time where we have the
information age, right? Was afew years ago. And then before
(11:17):
that, we had the technologyrevolution, dust revolution.
Agriculture is still in thatindustrial revolution. We're
trying to pump out a bunch ofprocesses and things, and that's
the where I grew up. My dad'svery project oriented. But now
we're actually in a customerrevolution, like customers are
the first, including ourselves,our mental health, where we are,
(11:37):
how we care for and that'sdefining more, more than
anything a company's success ishow well we care for each person
and farmers are getting there.But I do think that that's a gap
that we can really you can seethat in those high touch point
interactions, that the people atthe farmers market selling the
artisan bread like that. That'sthe way the future, in a sense,
(11:59):
and how can we harness that inagricultural community, but I do
think it's there's a few things,but a lot of it is where we fit
in the economic field and thenthe social field kind of might
have a little bit moreconservatism in most
agricultural industries. Yeah,and I'm thinking about that
whole customer revolution, andwhere you're talking about the
(12:21):
touch points for the consumer.Because I think that also tends
to be a thing that farmers tendto focus and be very creative in
doing, like I feel like, takingcare of the customer, at least
in my family. You know thatwhole the customer's always
right, the customer was alwaysright. Like you stood there, you
(12:42):
smiled, you apologized, Younodded, like you did all the
things you needed to do to makethat person feel good, even if
they were completely wrong, evenif they were like treating you
like different. But then when itcame to each other, we had no
like that. That's not the waythings work. Like then it's
(13:04):
you're supposed to be polite toyour grandfather or your brother
or your sister or, you know, andso there, and I'm going to take
it out of myself to make surethat my customer has a good
product, that my customer has agood experience, so I might not
get any rest, but my customer isgoing to get a good product. I
(13:27):
might get up at four o'clock inthe morning so I can spray
before the wind kicks up, but mycustomer is going to have clean
apples and clean corn and solike such an again, though it's
like such an interestingdichotomy, where the skills are
there, like a lot of thoseskills are there, and yet we
focus. We we have such a hardtime focusing them inward. I'm
(13:50):
thinking,
and I'm I'm totally thinking onmy feet right here, because you
know what you're talking about.Is really sparking some thoughts
here. But
yeah, so how, how would yourespond to that?
Yeah, that's very interesting.It puts me in the place of going
to a horse stables with myfather growing up, and I could
(14:11):
not, I could not understand,mentally, how come we're taking
this time. And he's talking tothis lady being sweet, enjoying
the scenery, yet at home, wehave to be so fast and punctual,
and it's not time for like idletalk that's very much frowned
upon. We need to what get haywhen the sun's shining. And I
could never understand, like yousaid, that those two skill sets,
(14:34):
but there is a huge salesmanshipcomponent to that. Where you're
going to find the mostprofitability is selling to the
end consumer without themiddleman like that. That's
where you but I never understoodthat as a worker, because, to
your point, we didn't. Thereisn't the focus on our
employees, our family needs thisself value. It's we need to get
this job done at the cost ofwhatever like deal with those
(14:57):
emotional repercussions. But I.
So, yeah, so that is bringingback memories of how that that
transpired. That's interesting.Yeah, I'm, I for me too, like,
I'm just, I'm sitting and I'm,I'm kind of looking at that
interesting, because I think itwas interesting too that you
mentioned the help that youknow, especially if your help
that's been working there for awhile, you become part of the
(15:20):
family. And as soon as you'rehelping, you're part of the
family, then you're justexpected to do, like, it's, you
know, I mean, I was, I was a kidrunning our farm stand. And when
I say a kid, I mean, I startedwhen I was six. So, like, I
literally grew up running thisWell, I mean, at first it was
(15:40):
like one wheelbarrow corn a daythat we sold and, you know, a
box of tomatoes or something. Itwas no big deal, but it ended up
growing into something really,really successful after my mom
got a hold of it and helpedcorral it. But the point being,
I cannot tell you how many daysin the summer I would be sitting
(16:01):
out there under the tree with mylittle picnic table and my corn
and my vegetables, and everybodywould go up for lunch, and I
would sit there under the tree,and I would wait for lunch, and
the lunch wouldn't come. Thelunch wouldn't come.
Eventually, actually, usuallythe lunch came, but like my
(16:25):
parents, there were times my momwas like, I'm sorry, I forgot
about you. And I'm like, youforgot about me. I'm your oldest
child. I am the first grandchildon both sides of the family. How
do you forget me?
And I'm like, the loudest one ofthe family. So you would think
that my absence would be missed,
(16:47):
but no, no,
but I think it holds to thatidea that it's like we're
expected to just do what needsto be done, and it's okay if,
and at that time, you know,yeah, I was upset about it, but
I didn't look at it as anythingreally awful. But I look back on
it now and I'm like, Huh, that'sa really interesting dynamic
(17:09):
that we just kind of assume thisis, this is the way that things
work. So yeah, so some of thismental stress is why you decided
not to farm Am I right?
Yes, 100% Exactly. So growingup, I realized, like, there's a
lot of work and energy to makevery little, like,
(17:29):
profitability. And as I growwith my family, I want to have
that time where we can go toDisney World, and we don't need
to, like, close a farm for aweek. We can budget so we can
whatever, go to a concert, andwe're not like we can still go
out to eat a few days, but thebalance, it's not all about
money. But yeah, I think that'sintriguing, that the strengths
can become our weaknesses. Asagriculture, there's such an
(17:53):
opportunity to be you're soclose to nature, to the land,
you're owning your ownindependence, that you can you
can leverage that, and we canrun gung ho, but meanwhile, we
could kind of trample on whatI'm saying is, my passion now is
a little bit more on theexperience. Like, have fun play.
(18:13):
I love, like, model tractors,like, like modeling something,
that's what I do with thecustomer experience, is, how
could this be better? How can Ihave fun with this idea? And we
do that in agriculture 100% butbecause we own so much of that
world, there's a tendency torush into the project
initiatives, and maybe overstepin the process, the people along
(18:37):
the way. And that's wherethere's some opportunity, where
we could, we can modify that,that model, that structure of
how we
enhance the experience, not justof our customers, but also our
employees as well. Yeah, and I,you know, what I notice is that
farmers can keep doing this,taking care of others for a
certain period of time, and thensooner or later, something
(19:00):
breaks, and when that somethingbreaks,
it's often almost irreversible,without, like, huge
intervention. It's, it's kind oflike a broken chassis, you know,
it's, we're not replacing atire. We have to, like, replace
the complete undercarriage ofthe way that the the machine
(19:22):
operates. And so some of us findthat as physical illnesses, you
know, I think farmers suffermore from some physical ailments
than they need to, becausethey're actually stress induced.
And it can be mental health, youknow. I mean, we know that
suicide is ridiculously high inthe agricultural community. But
(19:44):
also, I think those fragmentedrelationships, because if, if
everybody's always tired andeverybody is always focusing on
something outside of the familyand the and the relationships in
between, that's going to take.
Whole and so, you know, mypassion is really about trying
(20:05):
to help people to look at thisand say it doesn't have to be
this way. And I think I'm reallylike in this moment, realizing
how much those skills arealready there, and that we just
need to redirect them a littlebit and to validate not that
farmers don't have these skills,but that farmers don't apply
these skills to themselves. Andthen if we could help them to,
(20:28):
you know, look at themselves asjust as valuable as their
customers, then we we wouldprobably be able to support
their well being a whole lotbetter. And I gotta tell you, it
does end up helping themeconomically, relationally, like
all of that stuff does change,like it really, really does. So
(20:49):
I find that fascinating thatyou've mentioned that, yeah, and
you said that so well that wealready have those Toolworks.
And it's being it's being shownlike, if we could change our
perspective from thefrustration, from the heat, from
the energy, and put it into thesafety the building. What I'm
saying is we're greatstorytellers. We're great
(21:13):
inspirational leaders in theagricultural field, because we
have to, and because we're rightthere with nature, we see it's
animals grow, and it's, it'svery volatile. How what could
happen? We're at the mercy ofthe elements, right? So the
connection to a supernaturalforce and and that kind of leads
us to we, we're good at seeingthings from different angles. So
(21:34):
can we take that moment and lookat this problem from from a
different lens, and say, How canI how can I close this gap, and
how can I help focus on on oursafety, our well being, yet
still deliver that superiorproduct? And I think a lot of
that is embrace the fun of it,right? And that's when we had
(21:54):
the greatest thing as a familyin a farm, like going out in the
summer field and sitting on thehay wagon and seeing the
scenery, humming a song to thetune of the valor, running like
that's the thing we want, evenin today's age we're trying to
get in the insurance world, orwherever we are, we want
customers and employees toembrace the experience they're
in. And it's just like you said,it's a word shift, it's
(22:16):
semantics. It's It's not that Ihave to do this. It's, I want to
do this. I get to do this. I I'minvested in in a better future
and in myself and my family. Anda lot of that is that defining
that experience. You know, howcan we pitch this in a way that
now penetrates into my heartlike I believe what I'm doing
for a core being, and we'regoing to get there, and it might
(22:38):
take some hard work, and I'mused to hard work, but it's hard
work, not at my detriment, butfor my progress. Yeah, yeah.
And, and so let me ask you, as acustomer experience expert, what
are some of the little thingsthat work to support people's
customer experience, and how doyou think that farmers can
(23:00):
integrate them for themselves,you know, I mean, yes, farmers,
listening to this out there, wewant you to give your customers
the best customer experience,because that's good for your
business. Totally want that. AndI think that good customer
experience starts with a goodfarmer experience, and we can
shift that like I think what yousaid about perspective is spot
(23:24):
on that you can have two peoplein exactly the same situation,
and depending upon how they viewit, they're going to be happy or
they're going to be miserable.And so my belief is, let's go
for happy boys and girls like
because once we do that, we havemore energy. We are able to be
(23:45):
more creative. We're moreproductive because we're not as
tired like the benefits of justhaving a good attitude change us
so so talk to us about how thatlooks in customer experience,
and how farmers can maybe startlooking at themselves as their
own customers a little bit.
And you're right, it does startwithin. We need to embrace
(24:07):
ourselves and make sure we ourown experience is unified and
positive, and that translates tocustomers. So yeah, I mean some
simple things we do use acustomer's name and listen to
that, make sure that they feelheard, so use common words of
okay and what? How else doesthat make you feel and and what?
What else before you jump to asolution, but the biggest
(24:30):
take in customer experience, andthis might relate to larger
farms or industries, is thebreakup of an experience. So
it's the misunderstandingbetween the silos so this,
nobody comes to work and says,Oh, I want to give my customers
a hard time. Everybody believesthey're doing the best, but how
many times that we call the callcenter and we're bounced all
(24:50):
over? It's because of the thefrom a higher strategic lens,
we're not connecting the dotsthe people, the legal team might
not even be aware.
Are that the rules they puttogether, even though they think
are great, are actually makingit very hard for this customer
over here to get their theirwire fixed, because we told our
people not to touch theirmachines, it did. Well, there's
(25:12):
a little communicationmisconnect. So can we find even
those little things like, Oh, Ididn't realize that the way I
wrote this bill to useconfusing, because to me, it
makes sense, but it's thatchanging that perspective from a
customer lens, how does thatlook? So granted, speaking of
ourselves, we kind of know howwe look at the world, but do we
know? Do we I'm gonna, I'mgonna, I'm gonna ask, do we
(25:37):
really know how we look at theworld, like
there is a degree ofintrospection there that I'm not
sure, I'm not sure we all havedone that enough to say, How
does my perspective influencehow I interpret what I see?
(25:59):
I'm, I'm I'm curious.
Because I think, I think some ofus do. I think some of some of
us you know, those of us who've,
those of us who've hadsituations where you've spent a
decade or more in mental healthfields for various and sundry
reasons, you start to do anawful lot of this. Some of us
(26:20):
who are writers and really areinto that journaling and self
like, why do I do what I dostuff I love that? Like, I just
eat that up. Why am I angry atmy son when he does this, but
not when my daughter does it?What? What is the difference
there? But I'm not sure that wealways do that. So tell me if
(26:42):
that happens in customerexperience, where we think we
know how we're viewingsomething, but we're missing
something. Does that make sense?
No, that says it exactly right.And that's the whole concept of
modeling, and that's what we dowith like gamification and
playing with toys, right? Is wewe try this scenario out, and
then we step back and realize,oh, that worked in a completely
(27:04):
different way than I thought itwould. I had thought if I
lowered our prices, people wouldbe happier, but I didn't realize
that it that's not the keydriver, even though we ask
people, What makes you happier,and that's what they said.
There's that's still true, butit's not the truth.
Oh my gosh. Okay, I love mybrain is exploding. Zeke, it's
(27:27):
totally exploding right now,because that's what happens,
like when I, when I talk tofarmers, and like, we're, we're
doing some consulting, and theytell me the problem is this. And
so I'll ask a few morequestions. And then I'll be
like, is the problem that? Orwhat about this thing over here
(27:51):
that is seems to be coming upmore than this other issue, and
I think finances is one of thosethings for farmers that it's a
real easy blame, becausefinances are tough. Like very
few farmers do not wish they hadmore money.
There are not many who do. Andyet, scientifically, it's been
(28:14):
proven that once you're meetingyour expenses, having more money
doesn't make you happier at all.So whether you've got $8 billion
or you just paid the bills forthe month, and you're, you know,
you're out of money in the bank,but, but your bills are paid,
the happiness level doesn'tincrease, if all things are
(28:37):
equal. So that makes you wonderif we think it's money,
what is it really because if wethink it's money, but maybe it's
not money, what is it? So, whatwere some of the other things
driving those customers to bediscontent when it wasn't the
thing they thought it was?
(28:58):
So one journey that I'll bringattention to is in the claims
journey. So a lot of customers,we ask them, in the Claim
Transaction, they smash theircar, hit a deer this time of
year, right? And so how's itgoing? How do you feel? Oh, this
is terrible. I crashed my car inthe car is sitting here in the
shop for a week, and I don'tknow what's going on. I don't
have a payment. I don't know ifit's total loss. I got shop for
(29:20):
new car. We asked them the verynext day, or two days later,
their claim was closed. They gotthe chat. They got how'd it go?
Oh, it was great. A wonderfultransaction. Everything's fine
in the differences could just behours, right? There could be a
moment in life where we're,we're feel as a customer, and it
(29:41):
doesn't feel good. I don't quiteknow the answers. I never had a
claim before. I know who'ssupposed to call, how it's going
to work, and the next day,checks in the mail. Here's what
you have to do. Okay, I'm on.I'm past that hurdle in my life.
I'm on to this next thing. Iforget about that negative
experience, because that waspart of the junk I didn't like.
Hit in the D yard, and it wasnot fun. But look this that I
(30:04):
have a policy, because myinsurance company helps me do
this, and now I have to help soit does depend where we are in a
journey and to see how we feelany particular point in our
goals. Like to minimize thosebumps. But at the end of the
day, can we provide a solutionthat in we've seen this several
times. Customers complain thatbill's complicated, hard, but
(30:26):
when they're on the phone withsomeone and someone cares and
listens and oh, well, you justlook at line three and that's
Oh, they were so nice. They'reso friendly. I felt so happy
that you cared. So that buildsthat connection and encourages
that retention and loyalty tothe customer, because the
problem is resolved. And notonly resolved, we built a
relationship, we fulfilled apromise. We were true to our
(30:50):
name at the end, and it had acomplete resolution. So yeah,
can that translate in thefarming industry 100%
How can we we're going to haveups and downs, but how can we
have the moment of finality, themoment of truth, where in the
essence of our true beingshines? Yep, there was this
thing that happened, but at thecore, I really care, and I
(31:12):
provide the best whatever in theindustry, yeah, okay, so I just
love that phrase, the essence ofour true being shines like
there's wow, like that, right?There is poetry. And I am
thinking about,
you know, at first I was like,well, the problem's resolved, so
of course, they're feelinghappier, because now, you know,
before they were they were fullof angst, they were uncertain.
(31:35):
They didn't know what was goingon. And then we get certainty,
and certainty makes us feelgood. But then I was thinking
about situations that I've hadwhere I had a customer service
or customer experience, I shouldsay, and the service was
amazing, and my problem wasstill not resolved, and yet I
(31:55):
was able to get off the phoneand have all those other
feelings that you said that, youknow what? That person couldn't
solve my problem, but they werereally nice, and they were
really compassionate, and they,you know, they told me that I
was being nice, even though,like, I'll get on the phone
sometimes I will admit, like, Idon't like to be a jerk to
people, but there are timeswhere I'm frustrated and I get
(32:18):
on the phone and I'm like, I'mso sorry. You have to deal with
me right now. I know thisproblem is not your fault, and
I'm afraid I'm in a really badmood
and I might be a little witchyto you, and as soon as you even
just say that, the person on theother end automatically kind of
kicks in and is like, oh, it'snice of you to even acknowledge
(32:39):
that. And then I'm like, oh,it's nice of you to acknowledge
that. I'm acknowledging that.And then I go from my kids are
like, I thought you were upset,and now you're like, telling
jokes and exchanging lifestories with the the customer
service people. And I'm like,Yeah, well, because they were
nice to me, because, and I meanto to put credit where credit is
(32:59):
due, I was also honest aboutwhere I was at, and I think this
goes back to seeing our lensesand saying we have to be
we have to start by being trueabout what we're experiencing.
But I'm also hearing that likereflective listening, that
listening to each other andsaying, I see that you are
(33:22):
frustrated. And I think, howmany times in a in a farm family
or a farm business, like, Howdifferent could it be if we get
frustrated with our partner,with our kids and any anybody,
our employees, and we take abreath and say,
I don't like this. I'm I'm in abad mood, and I am going to take
(33:47):
a moment and tell that person Ican see that you're frustrated
about this too. So how do wesolve this together? As opposed
to, I told you 8 million timesyou gotta hit this button before
you do that button, or we losethe transaction.
And and it might be true. Andthen I would also say, as a
(34:10):
consultant, I'd be like, Excuseme, do you have a Do you have a
list of job aids, a job aidthere that says, press this
button, this button and thisbutton, because that could solve
this
but this is where I think thiswhole, like, sometimes we need
that external person to providea little bit of perspective.
Yes, right? And you've definedperfectly that a de escalation
(34:33):
and setting expectations to theupfront. Can we say, be a little
vulnerable, be human, say who weare, and then as things go
through the journeys, what aresome ways we could deescalate
and bring it down? Which, whichis excellent customer servicing
skills, yeah. Can you give me afew other deescalation skills?
Because I'm a big fan of deescalation. I have a child who
(34:56):
was very aggressive. No,seriously, like my son was
super, super.
Impressive when we were when hewas younger, the things we've
gone through with that boy andso de escalation is, like, it's
kind of second nature to me now,because I've spent eight years
intensively learning how to deescalate conflict, and it always
(35:17):
starts with mom, like the firstperson it always starts with is,
I gotta calm myself down,because if I'm agitated, things
go bad.
But tell us, tell us some of thede escalation skills. I'm sure
you've been trained in those.Yes, yeah, sure. No, that makes
sense. I mean, there's avariety, but there's things you
(35:38):
don't do, like you don'tdisagree and say no. And there's
things you do do like you try toagree. I see you're upset. That
sounds like that was a badexperience from your lens. And
then you solution, you offer, asopposed to pinpointing a
customer, this is what we'regoing to do, provide options. I
can see you're upset with theway this bill is, would you like
(36:00):
we have a couple options. If wedid the full pay, there's a 10%
discount, but if you did thispartial pay, you'd only have
this much due today. You couldchange coverages and speak to
your agent. Would that besomething we could schedule in
the future? You providedifferent opportunities so the
person still feels in charge,and you'd let the person be
heard. You Well, know a lot ofpeople once they vent, then they
(36:22):
relax a little. They needed toget that frustration out. Know
that they're heard, so you allowthat space. We don't rush
customers off the phone. Andthere is a certain business
strategy too. It might not workin farming, but sometimes
customers feel better when theykind of, I don't say, bounce
around, but they feel betterwhen they're moved up a chain.
So sometimes they say, Hey, Iwant to talk to your supervisor.
(36:44):
Maybe we don't have asupervisor, but we have another
employee next to us who alsodoes specializes. And so some
once they go to that nextperson, sometimes the customer
is like, Okay, I really reamedJenny out over there, but you're
going to help me. Let me justlevel set. And their tones way
down here again. So sometimes itis like changing that
environment, right? Changing whowe're talking to in the setting.
(37:07):
And I think that could relate toeven our work life as well in
the farm. Yeah,
yeah. So let's, let's do some, Idon't know, I feel like
brainstorming right now. So I'mthinking about, we're on the
farm. Let's think of a typicalescalation kind of thing. So
you've got you ever, had youever seen help that breaks in a
(37:32):
piece of equipment?
The temptation is to scream andyell at them because they broke
the piece of equipment. And Iwant to start farmers and say,
You're absolutely right to befrustrated and angry in that
(37:52):
situation, because, yes, it'sbad when somebody breaks your
equipment. And deescalating thesituation will probably keep it
from going from bad to worse,because oftentimes the problem
is not quite as bad as we thinkit is in the moment. Like, how
many times have we heard thatsickening crunch when we backed
(38:15):
up and we didn't see somethingbehind us and we thought, Uh oh,
I got I just ruined my vehicle.And then we pull forward and
it's like, oh, okay, I scratchedthe paint. It's fine because
we've got these great newbumpers that, like, pop in and
all I have to do is, like, blowon them and they pop back out
again and it's, it's golden. So,you know, so, so maybe take them
(38:37):
away from the equipment beforeyou even have a conversation
like, just say, let's, let's getaway from here. And you do a
couple of things. You do somemovement which makes your body
feel better. You breathe alittle bit. And then you've
changed the location so you canstart to have that conversation.
And then, instead of yelling andscreaming, you can say, can you
(38:58):
tell me what went wrong?
What happened?
So then we're teaching asopposed to just punishing, and
then the person who committedthe crime
feels a little bit moreresponsible to you because
you've been so kind to them thatnow they're like, Oh, that was
(39:21):
really dumb. I don't ever wantto do that again. And you didn't
have to yell at them. The bossfeels better because they knew
they control, controlled theirtemper. So I think it, I think
there's a lot of stuff going onthere that that farmers can use
from a customer experienceperspective. I'm, I'm loving
that, absolutely loving that.So, so I'm going to kind of jump
(39:47):
ahead to where you are now,because you have said that you
do a little bit of farming now,but you're not, you're not a
full time farmer anymore. Sotell me about the type of
farming, farming that you do,and what that's like and and
what you see in your.
Future as far as agriculture?
Sure, yeah. And I think an oldtime friend of mine would say,
you can take the farm out of theboy, but you can't take the boy
(40:09):
out of the farm. Or vice versa.Basically, it's in the blood.
And yeah. So I've, I've alwayskind of had a few little cheaper
goats around, even a littlequarter acre lot in town, or now
got a few acres out in the endof it, at End Road, like a
little spot to have little herdof we tried a little bit of
dairy Malcolm, mix some icecream. So the kind of
(40:30):
homesteading almost, I do have alittle tractor, a couple
tractors. I work up a littleplot of land and put in some
heritage weed or some maybe someblue popcorn. Just try a couple
different kind of weird breedsof
local horticulture that I couldgrow in the area. But yeah, in
the future, I definitely might.And so I've got a daughter,
(40:51):
Vivian, she wants a goat in thespring, so we'll probably have a
little goat to kind of have inthe yard to chew off the weeds
I know, like the what the worksinvolved. Who likes to go out in
the winter and break the ice offthe pails and all this? But
there's something so beautifulabout just seeing nature and
being part of that. And formyself, personally, I still very
(41:12):
involved in the agriculturalcommunity. So even, like this
year, I have an off year, and Idon't have livestock in the barn
right now. I've got rid of mychickens for a bit, but I love
going, like to our littleharvest festivals and our
antique tractor shows and theSpring Festival. And you kind of
connect with other farmers andhow, how you see the life
(41:34):
journey, you see the generationsof people still keeping the
farming traditions alive inthose stories. Means so much to
me, because I remember thosetimes, and I still visit my
sister's farm in support upthere. Sometimes it's a project
we're doing. I'll run up toMalone and help for a weekend,
but yeah, very much involved inthe in the community, and kind
(41:55):
of having an ear to the groundof Where did where's the history
of this, this particular land oror this family, and how did it
evolve, and where are we going?But, yeah, I definitely have a
connection to just seeinganimals and plants continue to
thrive and then be part of thatfarmers market community, just
the people. It's amazing who youmeet. I think there's a
(42:17):
monastery in our area. Theyraise some sheep or something
like, Who would have thought?And I found him in the in the
farmer's market, but, yeah, youmeet all kinds of fun people.
Oh, that is awesome. That isabsolutely awesome. I love that.
I'm like, Boy, I've just goneback, like, how many hundreds of
years to, like, when monasterieswere all self supporting. And,
(42:40):
you know, it wasn't Wow, it waslike a whole community, you
know, it really was. They grewtheir own food, they took care
of all of their own needs. Like,wow, so, so fascinating.
And there was something that yousaid, Oh, stories. So, you know,
story is one of the things thatI've always been passionate
(43:00):
about, and it's, it's why Ireally love doing this.
You know, having this containeris because, you know, I've said
before, I always meet thesefarmers and I want to tell their
stories. Because as soon as Istart talking to anybody, I'm
like, Oh my gosh, your story isamazing. Like, we should, we
should definitely share yourstory with the world, and now I
(43:23):
have the opportunity to do itand like the the way that I used
to do it, when I was writing alot for country folk, and doing
like, which you also havewritten for country folks.
You know that it's a very timeconsuming process if you're
going to do it right, you knowyou got to go out to the farm,
go spend an hour talking to thefarmer, take your photos. Come
(43:44):
home. Take another hour or twoto, you know, accumulate all
your stuff and put it togetherand write an article and send it
off. And, you know, all thatstuff. And this is like one hour
we sit down. Now, it does take awhile to go and do post
production stuff. Althoughanybody who watches my show
knows we don't do a whole lot ofpost production.
(44:07):
If it's too much more thansplice put together, I don't do
it.
So anybody out there who who islooking for, you know, an
opportunity to work on your techskills, and you want to, you
want to come and talk it. I'mlooking for support there, but,
(44:29):
but anyway, I think that wholestory thing is so critical and
and so when you were writing forcountry folk, tell us what kind
of stories you were writing,what articles were you putting
in, yeah, so stories tell somuch, and it gets the essence of
who we are as humanity. So thatwas kind of my niche focus. Was
more community event in thestory behind. So we did an
(44:52):
article for, there's an antiquepower in Motor Museum, and they
have a presentation for in theboth the Spring Show.
In the fall show for the comingof the farming year, and then
the harvest season, we bring outa bunch of once they had the
group from Syracuse, New York,that does all the orange group
that does all the elves,Chandler has brought in. And
(45:12):
these people I've talked to, oneman, he had over 40 tractors. He
restored, like shiny pain, like,it's incredible the collections
people have in their focus. Butlike each of those tractors,
tells a story about a uniquepart of our modern day history,
where the manufacturer comes outwith this thing, but real people
use this. And they for a littleand they got the belts that run
(45:33):
the corn, these old pulleys andand, yes, the safety was a
thing, but, but it shows howthings have evolved. So we see
both a technological component,but also how that affects
people. I guess a specificstory. There was a clock Museum.
They never heard of such athing, but this gentleman had
devoted his life to fixingwatches and clocks. And there
(45:55):
was an old clock back from, Iwant to say, like almost
revolutionary times, and itshowed like the change from the
Roman calendar to the Gregoriancalendar, it had the difference
of the of the months names, fromJanus to January. I couldn't
believe it, but his daughters,he passed away, and his daughter
is, like, memorialized him,yeah. But, like, this is a story
(46:15):
right in central New York,upstate, further upstate,
Northern New York, yeah, thatyou would never know about, but
people are bringing this, thisheritage, to life and sharing it
with the world. And to me,that's just so special, because
we work every day in the fieldsand devoting our life to trying
to make a living right off ofthe earth we live on. Yet every
(46:36):
generation has a passion thatthey speak to and now that can
be shared with others. And Ijust love that component. So
that that was one component,I've written a few little
articles, kind of what we talkedabout, about CX customer
experience, yeah, when I'm on inthe shop at the farm and doing
this, how does that relate to acustomer in its interest, in the
(46:57):
same psychological components,how what we think about drives
those same decision makingprocesses. So in the business,
you know, we think about howcustomers think and care and
where they're coming from. Well,we have to go through that
ourselves in whatever processwe're doing and the farm to stay
motivated, to stay involved, tonot give up, to gain that
resiliency. And that's whatwe're all about. On the business
(47:19):
side, is customer churn,retention, the opposite churn,
like, how resilient are theywith a brand? Yeah, well, we
have to believe in our ownbrand. In the agriculture
community, believe in ourselves,and that's what's going to keep
us in business. So what are thethings that you tell yourself?
What are the things that you howdo you change that language?
Right? We talked about changeperspective shift. How do we
(47:40):
change from boy, this isterrible, yeah, the narrative to
like, Oh, this is inspiring.Here's an opportunity in that's
what we work the problems wework with every day, with
customers. So I focused on moreseasonal components as we go
through the season. This is whatit reminds me of here, and this
reminds me here, and see thekind of parallelism. But yeah,
agriculture is a fascinatinglandscape to kind of paint the
(48:02):
picture of some experiencemetrics of our life against,
yeah, absolutely. And I'm alsothinking, you know, as you were
talking about how we had tobelieve in ourselves as farmers,
and we have to believe in ourbrand. And I'm also thinking
that the core has to start withour hearts, like what it is that
(48:24):
our passion is and our purposeis, and that the farmers who
are, and I would say, anybody,anybody who is working out of
their passion, out of theirpurpose, they can connect so
deeply with that, and they havethat sense that what they're
doing has meaning because it hasmeaning for them, and therefore
(48:46):
they can bring that honestly tosomebody and say, this has
meaning for you too, like Iknow, when I first started
consulting with farmers, I hadthis fear that I was not going
To give them enough like that Iwasn't going to be able to
deliver results for them, and itwasn't until I've had clients
(49:08):
and I'm delivering results. Andthe stuff that I knew in my
head, I was like, I know thiswill work. I know it'll work,
but I needed that confirmationout here to be like, yes, okay,
this. This works for people likewe there's, there's really
something there that keeps,keeps driving the action
(49:29):
forward. And I think forfarmers, it's super important
that they really dig into whatthat is for them, because you
can have a financiallysuccessful farm by chasing the
latest trends,
but that's probably not going tobe the thing that keeps you
satisfied and helps you throughthe hard times in your business.
(49:52):
It might take you to a certainlevel, but I really do believe
that when the hardest timescome, it's it's not the shiny
objects.
It's the, it's the core herethat, you know, that diamond
that's in there that stillhasn't been cut apart and and
polished up. It looks like it'sjust a rock.
(50:13):
Oh my gosh, Zeke. And I'm, I'vehad just so much fun talking to
you. And I'm, I've, I've got totell you, like my brain has
definitely just been
it's opened up so much to thisidea of the customer experience
and its relationship to farming,and also how the farmers are
(50:36):
doing it so intuitively, and nowthey just need to. They need to
care for themselves the way theycare for their customers. Really
like if, if they could justshift that perspective again and
value themselves the same waythat they do their customers, we
would be able to to give them somuch more life satisfaction. And
(50:57):
I, I'm really, I'm really struckby that, so I want to thank you
for that. And before we go, Ihave one question that I ask
every guest on food, flowers and
fun, if you had the opportunityto give farmers one piece of
advice that you felt everyfarmer should know, what would
that be?
(51:17):
So I think you captured it inthe last word of this podcast
was was fun, like, life's astage. Get out and dance. And I
think that's a big thing. Don'tbe afraid, express yourself, and
that means so much to people.Oh, that's great. I dance badly,
but I love to dance, so I'mgonna leave us with that
(51:41):
everybody out there get up andgo out and dance, and we will
see you next time on food,flowers and fun. Bye
farmers, calling our show is allfun. Goodbye, farewell. So long
Adieu, see you next week. Sametime, same place for Food,
(52:02):
Flowers and Fun, go in peace.
Visit us at www.penlightfarmers.com
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.