Custom Precision Solutions

Music So at our new equipment we have over 30 egg locations that are spread across eight different states. So across all these states we get a lot of diversity of our customers and the crops that they grow. We recognize as we develop this team that need to leverage the expertise across the different regions. So we have approximately three different regions. The Midwest region that consists of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota. We have the Northwest region that consists of Oregon and Washington. We also support some in Western Montana. And then we have the states of California along the coastal California, the Salinas Valley, Watsonville Valley areas. And then also the Desert Southwest that we have down in the Y So looking at the diversity across their wide range, everything from the upper Midwest to the with the corn, soybeans, small grains, sugar beads for our row crops here in the River Valley. To we get to West North Dakota with the diversity of corn, soybeans, again it's from lentils and peas and hay. Northwest, we have a large diversity across the Northwest. It's kind of a blend between our Southwest region and Midwest region because they'll get into the corn and wheat production. But then also they get into a lot of potatoes, onions, carrots that they kind of get in that Northwest region. And also get into some of the orchards with apples, for instance. As we get into the center coast of California, we get into that strawberries, lettuce area in the coastal California along with a lot of other produce. And we see a lot of synergies between the center post California and the Desert Southwest, especially with our lettuce production as the climate changes to regions to supply, especially around the lettuce production. We see a lot of synergies and similarities there. We keep our focus, we want our product specialist being diverse and leveraging each other's expertise. Minotkin burned out. That's the nice thing is of how we manage this team from a centralized approach and working together the team to help support our customers with that diversity of all the crops that they have. Each region we do take a kind of regional approach to the training that's going on in each one of those regions. We typically try to do one main event in each one of the regions for some of the newer equipment and some of the training needs around it. And also we try to leverage as far as those training needs with our team involved with that as well. So we'really just trying to embracing a new initiative that John Deere has called the Certified Dealer Instructor Program, where we have team members on our team conducting that training. And we're crossing lines across the different regions to do that training. So it's easier for us to send one individual out to an area to conduct training with multiple employees compared to multiple employees traveling to a Deere location to get that training. So that'something that Deere's allowed, opened up to here over the past year or two that we're leveraging. First and foremost now is one most of the people are applying are interested in agriculture or technology or both. And that's first foremost is that there's an interest level and usually people applying do have that interest. Secondly is that we look at, does the individual fit the culture of our company, of our deal, each dealership and each company I think has a unique culture that's unique to them. And finding an individual that fits and resonates with is key to having a successful employee. Then from there, the onboarding process, it's kind of based off of the as far as the region and specific stores that they're going to be responsible for. So for a pre-certified specialist typically have two locations that they're supporting. So based off of the needs and the sales history of that customer base, we'll critique their training needs for that. But with that we fortunately are tied with a major manufacturer with John Deere who has very good training and resources tools to get our team up to speed on those specific product lines. So that's usually not a challenge to get as far as that information goes and getting our team trained up on those. Because one of our core values is partner with employees and we leverage that. We try to leverage that and grain that into what our team does. We've had in the past had where you can get burnout from an employee, especially in the technology space. Because once customers start knowing that you know something and they have your phone n So to minimize that is really leveraging the team as a whole. And we've brought in certain tools as far as trying to manage that, manage that to call load coming in to those individuals and then also collaborating between the individuals within our team even. What's been very helpful is John Deere'strategy with the Operations Center and building out APIs that remain open for other companies to develop their products on to have access to the data on the equipment. That's definitely opened up opportunities to work with more companies to help it integrate better with the equipment with what we're doing. And we have seen from that and working with these companies, more quicker adoption and easier adoption. They kind of understand a John Deere dealer a little bit more too of bringing those certain technologies in. But we also opened up looking at other opportunities that John Deere is able to deliver. And a lot of times you're looking at specialty market, one of them is around lettuce thinning, we're parting off with a manufacturer for a lettuce thinner. And it's very high tech with cameras and identifying the spacing. And with that we look towards our team when you look at a technology So we do continue to look at those companies that we can work together with, collaborate with, provide solutions to our customers. When we look at a lot of the ag retail, when you look at our ag service providers such as AgEgra, they connect with customers at a level with their input needs around fertilizer, crop protection, seed needs. And we understand expertise that they bring to our customers. And that's also in how they connect with our equipment that we currently have all their day. So instead of our approach of having full agronomy staff make an agronomic recommendations for our customers, we look at collaborating and working together with companies such as AgEgra and other ag service providers. And that, some of those take longer to develop. So the short term gains might not be seen, but long term, collaborating long term, we get much more benefit as we're seeing.