When I talk with customers at this time of year, largely the conversation is all about the farming side of things, ie: how the moisture is looking for next year, whether they have managed one cut or multiple cuts of silage, whether they are holding or selling grain or livestock.
What I find interesting is the number of factors that go into making decisions and how complex that can be for farmers. Back in the days of my banking career I spent many hours in conferences learning about how to manage complex systems and difficult situations. Banks have entire departments focused on interpreting data and making decisions. Farmers do it largely themselves. As a result many of the farmers I know have developed great skills in managing through complex and ambiguous times. Many don’t realise it, but these skills are often highly sought after in many other industries.
So I like to listen during these conversations because I always learn something that helps me think differently about the decisions I need to make in DelayPay. Whether I am thinking about managing our funding requirements or our marketing budget or working out when to schedule annual leave – all these conversations are pieces of data to take into account as I set our course for the days and weeks ahead.
When it comes down to it, I think one of key things I have learnt from my time managing DelayPay is not to get caught up in all the things that could happen. There are so many variables and potential outcomes, it can be easy to fall into paralysis mode. So to avoid this I try to spend time learning and then doing something with that knowledge as quickly as I can. Even if the “doing” bit is a small thing it is so important as that action builds momentum and creates the confidence within the business to keep making decisions and moving forward. The more I exercise this skill the better the decisions I make, or at least that is how I feel about it.
So I learnt plenty during my time at Nab, but I think it has taken 5 years at DelayPay talking to farmers for me to have a better handle on what all those courses were about!
To the farmers out there who take the time for a chat, thank you and keep doing what you do. Best of luck with the decisions you make leading up to Christmas – I hope they set you up for a good season ahead!
And given it’s that time of year where plenty of our customers use us to manage the sale of their newly harvested commodities, I’ll leave you with a story on how grain and sheep farmer Craig Miller has used DP in his farming operation. Read more HERE.