Tough Times Teach

You learn a lot more in the tough times than the good!

Ever talk with a relative that survived the Great Depression? Like no other experience in their lives, these years of despair changed their lives and shaped who they are. Both my parents grew up in that timeframe and often tell stories of how they survived on less. Married and starting their family in the 1950’s, they enjoyed years of good times through the booming economy of the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s. But it’s those tough years as a kid in the depression, doing what it took to get by, that taught them their greatest life lessons.

Talking to long-time farmers, I found the same pattern, with one exception. The long-time farmers will talk about the difficulty of the early 80’s, with high interest rates and low commodity prices. Or they might refer to the droughts in 1988 and 2012. The floods in 1993 might come up as well. The one exception? The ethanol boom in 2007 that drove corn prices up.

In agribusiness and in your sales territory, we have these moments as well. It might not be widespread mayhem like a drought, flood or other natural disasters. Yet it can be just as devastating to your business. It might be a new regulation that kills demand for your product (antibiotics in feed). It might be some internal company change that causes a customer service nightmare and you lose significant portions of your business. I’ve written about several that I went through: See – My Second Worst Day of Selling Feed or My Third Worst Day of Selling Feed

These are tough experiences for sure and I don’t mean to candy coat them or make it sound like an enjoyable experience, because they aren’t. They are tough and often scary to go through. We don’t know the eventual outcome or which path to take. Should we persist as others leave the business or should we jump out early and avoid the eventual ride to the bottom of the market? Is this a momentary blip in the long-term upward spiral or is this a nose dive to the bottom? These are the thoughts that go through your mind as you struggle to figure out your next move.

Trust that you will survive. You will make the next move and the tough times will subside at some point. My message today is that during these times, you learn the most about you, your company and your business.

You learn the nitty gritty details of how your business operates: In my examples, I learned way more about trucking and feed manufacturing than I ever wanted to. Those experiences forced me to understand more about the industry I was in. This real-life experience served me well in later years, was highly valued by my customers, and unmatched against most of my competitors.
You learn alternative ways: Necessity is the mother of all invention: This is a great time to understand how important your products and services are to your customer. Did your company decide to kill their financing program? You now know how important that service was to your customers. You also have to find an alternate way to solve your customer’s financing needs. The price of phosphorous skyrocketed 400%? You start challenging the amount your customer needs in their feed. You also start valuing the available phos in alternative feed ingredients.
You learn a lot about your customer: The old saying is “Tough times don’t build character, they reveal it” applies here. Will they hold you accountable for problems beyond your control? Or will they work with you to achieve a long-term solution that’s best for both? Will they ask for unreasonable financial compensation every chance they can or will they work out a fair solution with you so you both can stay in business? The answers to these are only revealed when going through these tough times.
You learn even more about your fellow employees: Who will step forward and help and who will step back and point fingers? Who will look for alternatives and work towards a solution and who will lay low to avoid responsibility or extra work? Again, the only way to truly know is to go through these tough times.
You learn about yourself
- Surviving: You learn to survive and hopefully thrive under the stress. You learn what is truly important in life and in what order they are important. Health, safety, family, etc. You figure out what matters.
- Experiences that often can’t be replicated. You can go to a class and listen to lectures over and over, but those are simulations and what-ifs. It takes real experiences to actually know what you will do.
- As the clouds dissipate and the sun comes back out over these tough times, your confidence grows and you realize that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. You are better, smarter, and stronger for going through it.

As I work with sales teams, there is an obvious diversity in age and experience levels. Some in the training sessions are new and haven’t experienced the “war” stories that the older salespeople tell. My advice to them is always the same. Trust that there will be easy and tough times in your future. You too will have a chance to survive floods, droughts, wildfires, plant shutdowns, industry booms, and busts. You too will go through government or industry regulations that are difficult to work through. You too will go through rising interest rates, labor issues, mergers, and acquisitions.

And most of all, you too will survive them and be better for the experience.

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