“ I don’t have to swing for the fence anymore. I just hit singles all day long.”
— Ken Motiuk
A well-developed network of fellow producers, brokers and advisers with an interest in your success is invaluable in lending inside knowledge. But it doesn’t just happen.
Allan Johnston owner-operator of Johnston’s Grain produces a daily newsletter with quotes for everything from peas and lentils to feed wheat. He says that farmers who use brokerage services benefit by exposure to opportunities. “The reason is that it gives them so many options they could never get on their own.”
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“A grower needs someone they can trust, with extensive knowledge of pricing and marketing strategies, someone who truly cares about the success of the farm,” adds Mark Lepp, owner of FarmLink Marketing Solutions in Manitoba. “Most successful marketers are good managers of their time and realize that marketing takes time.”
To market efficiently, they use advisers and brokerage companies to filter through the myriad of market information. Those sources should be independent, unbiased, knowledgeable professionals who understand farming as well as the commercial grain trade and advocate for all types of crops.
An effective network also gives moral support and validates your decisions. “Marketing is a tough job because you can judge yourself every day, whether you made a good or bad decision,” says Frank Backx from Hensall Co-op in southwestern Ontario.
Another consideration that seems to help is for the spouse to be involved in marketing. Often, it helps formalize your thinking. “They seem to have an easier time pulling the trigger,” says Backx. “Two heads are better than one, when it comes to marketing.”
“The single most important trait all good marketers have is insatiable curiosity,” says Jerry Bouma of Toma & Bouma Management Consultants, Edmonton. “Look to learn, challenge what you know and don’t assume that you know, it’s likely changed.”
Market conditions are constantly changing, Bouma says, and the successful marketer responds in three ways, by identifying good sources of information, by using good advisers — both professional and personal, and by learning everything they can about the markets they’re selling into.
Where you get that information may vary per crop. For example, keeping abreast of developments in Brazil, a major supplier with an expanding low-cost production base, is critical to understanding soybean markets. Given corn’s importance in the U. S. farm economy, U.S. farm policy is a significant determinant of supplies and ultimately price.
Elite marketers continually ask questions, read about the markets and learn how to apply information to their farm. Their marketing strategies change as they learn more options and opportunities.
The George Morris Centre offers several courses on marketing, including a long-standing course about futures and options. For commodity sellers, the key is to put discipline in the process. That’s why top marketers take courses on different ways to set selling price, so the psychological position is replaced with a technical analysis.
“It’s not about learning if the price will go up or down,” says one of the teachers of the GMC course, Al Mussell. “It’s a pragmatic answer to what will I do if the price goes beyond a certain level.”
Be sure to talk to other farmers
Having a network of buyers is key but so is having a network of other farmers and advisers. “We do business and we socialize,” Ken Motiuk says.
Motiuk has built his network through his livestock investments and by going to farm meetings, and also via his involvement on many boards and provincial institutions. In addition to being a director on the CWB, he’s been on such boards as Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, United Grain Growers, and then Agricore United. Currently he is a director on the Alberta Credit Union Deposit Guarantee Corporation.
“Our network is made up of people from at least 40 miles away,” Motiuk says. Neighbours are too close and in competition for land.
There’s a network at home too
It’s difficult enough to make a selling decision when it’s just one person, but marketing can become even more complicated when more people are involved. Yet as farms grow, more and more farmers have to make more group decisions more often.
Having written goals and targets helps to clarify and justify pricing decisions. “Sometimes it’s easier to have three opinions and sometimes it’s not,” says Lepp. “It can be harder but in the end, we tend to be on the same page.”
The preplanning and target setting is even more important with team decisions. “The thing that makes it easier to pull the trigger with any number of people is the planning,” says Lepp. “And if you know how it’s going to affect your business.”
On the positive side, the larger the team, the larger the network of knowledge and support. Each of the Lepps has a network of buyers and altogether they have significant reach that they can add to the advice they get from their brokerge, Ian says. “You call around to make a sale and the next time they’ll call you if their looking for product. Slowly over time you get to know more and more people.” CG
