Visioning 2026 Blog
Testimonial--Connections, Access Points, Putting it Together
Rick Smyre, I really thank you for your encouragement.
Your are my mentor where my father may have been if he was still alive. I need to tell you a little story on why I say this. My Dad took risks in introducing new sales techniques and technologies in the agricultural industry. He taught his salesmen how to use a four-function calculator in 1972 to create a feed ration for livestock customers without having to go back to the headquarters for the answers. This was instant creditability. He introduced a university simulation tool to advance the least cost feed ration based on available ingredients and their corresponding costs.
The thing that was missing before was the integration of how these ingredients influenced the rate of gain and their associated ingredient costs to the overall cost of production. It so happened that I was writing a part of the computer code as part of my senior project for my undergraduate degree. So at the time I didn't really understand the big picture (1978).
He quickly saw the value of this tool in helping customers make decisions toward the beginning of harvest and before purchasing livestock. For example, do I cut more corn silage or harvest the corn in kernels based on the markets? Given my variable input costs what do I need to receive for my livestock to make a profit. In other words he was able to give his customer a tool that they could go to the banker to show them they could make money given the current and project market conditions. Here was one of the first introductions of information technology and the value of information in the livestock market place.
The whole company adopted the tool across 8 states in the Midwest. This helped the company, customer, and university. Talk about collaboration!!! I Bcc... you on a email to one of our suppliers that is an innovator in many ways. The company president was one of the first to introduce water-based sealants to the wood flooring industry, several years ago he introduced water based field marking paint for synthetic sports fields (that's how we happened to get connected), and is now teaming with another firm to introduce antimicrobial products and processes for the sports industry.
A local Edward Jones investment advisor we've been working with the last two years is a great asset manager and is a leading proponent of the ethanol industry. He gave me an access point that I need to follow-up on, I may have mentioned it in the telecon on Thursday, John Pappajohn from Des Moines, IA. He is the Warren Buffet of Iowa. He has created 5 entrepreneur centers throughout Iowa. I've included a link from one of his centers. There is a video of him under Archives, a presentation in 2002. http://www.bcs.uni.edu/jpec/index.html
My brother is actively involved Junior Achievement in his local school system in Omaha, NE. Have you been involved at all with this organization? I see that we have to start working with the youth while their still in grade school, especially by high school, to understand business practices and learn more about global economy. In my mind this leads into entrepreneur centers which are backed by venture capital funds like what has been done by Pappajohn. There will be no quick fix, rather a transformation over 10-20 years. The local community college could be a primary player or Wayne State College which is only 35 miles away. How do we get our local business community to understand this need for personal knowledge investment along with the financial incentives?
The University of Nebraska Extension Education Department is developing a EntrepreneurShip Investigation (ESI) training syllabus to be used by 4-H clubs and schools systems. This program is designed to be used in parallel with other 4-H projects to help individuals develop entrepreneur skills so they can find ways to stay in their local communities throught businesses development.
A local business owner (JK) is on the edge, I think, of getting the AHAH. He has the personal recruitment process down yet the community is lacking the business recruitment piece (creating the knowledge based and the future microbiology industries of the future), or let me say we have not been as successful, in changing our economic development model.
A local SCORE chapter was started in the last two years with mostly traditional business executive experience. They understand cash flow, business plan, marketing, but not necessarily in the information technology age and how we can better understand these markets using tools that are available on the Internet. Just read a very interesting article on 20 Smart Companies to Start Now, Business 2.0 Magazine editors, asked venture capitalists for great startup ideas (CNNmoney.com). Here's where I may be able to engage JK to expand what Norfolk Area Recruiters (NAR) is doing. His group primarily consists of younger professionals, 35-45 year olds.
For example if a particular sport field related product comes up on my "radar screen" through a trade magazine, eNewletter, email, etc. I typically will check to see whether there are many searches being performed on the Internet. (This is one of our trade secrets that folks can learn easily enough by keeping updated on Internet tools and tricks.) I use the following web site, Key Word Selector, that tells me how many times a key word or phrase was used in the last month on Overture (not sure if this includes Yahoo which purchased Overture over a year ago). How popular is this keyword concerning active searches? Yahoo represents about 20% of the on-line searches. http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
Let's use "antimicrobial" in the on-line tool which comes back with numerous combinations. The tool reported that antimicrobial has 1145 searches done in April. This tells me right away that people are interested in this keyword or keyword phrase. Therefore this is a possible market opportunity. I then use the same keyword in the Google search engine to see how many times the keyword has been indexed by the Google, in this case 13.5 million. Here again a very popular keyword however this may mean there is also a lot of competition in the market place depending on the particular industry and product application. I continue to make a table of related keywords and key word phrases using a simple Excel spreadsheet to better understand the "picture" of the market place and our opportunity to market the product on our web site.
One thing we'll check is whether a product is being sold on a web site, do they have pricing. Here again I want to understand the competition. If no one can directly purchase the product using an on-line shopping chart solution then I immediately know we have a niche market to pursue. I will search on eBay to see if any products are being offered through this on-line supermarket. Is the product in a big box stores? We will search out possible manufactures that will drop ship the item directly to the customer without us having to carry inventory. We may find that we can produce the product right here in Norfolk.
For example, our Sandbags are produced by a local tarp and awning company. The owner is a member of our Kiwanis Club and was able to help with the prototyping and establishing a cost of manufacturing. Now they produce these sandbags, normally during their non-rush periods. I can normally do this market research in less than 5 days, sometimes in a couple hours to determine whether to proceed. This is something that couldn't have been done very effectively 7 years ago. This is another of my testimonials on why I believe transformational learning concepts are so critical to our future.
OBTW...I recently attended a Boy Scout adult training class that will prepare individuals to effective adult leaders. They have incorporated a technique called "reflection" (developed in Minnesota) that helps people understand communications techniques and asking open-ended questions so individuals consider an appropriate response versus a yes or no answer. He used a enclosed rope, first asking the group to grab the rope then closing their eyes. He then asked the group to create a triangle. After the group agreed they were done he asked them a couple questions, e.g., who was the leader, was it important who this was. He then repeated the process asking the group to create a square, then asking a question how was the communications different from the previous exercise, was there more teamwork involved and if so how?
I thought you might enjoy this last story. Thanks again for your time. Regards, Mark Hall
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