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“Like everybody else in the world, finding enough people has been a challenge. I'm a big proponent of hiring the right people and developing them. They don't always have to have the skills when they walk in the door, but if they're innately a person that fits your core values, you can find value in that and you can find a place for them.”

— Jim Steinke, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Ag Express Electronics

Since its start 30 years ago in 1992, Ag Express Electronics has expanded from 10 employees to more than 170, and the company’s growth isn’t stopping there.

Jim Steinke, Ag Express’ vice president of sales and marketing, says development plans are in the works for three of its facilities — and all levels of leadership are involved to ensure the company is set up for success as it navigates current challenges and prepares for those to come.

In part 2 of this 2-part series, Jim talks about Ag Express’ expansion plans, the barriers and gaps the company is working to fill, including addressing the ongoing, industry-wide supply chain shortages, and much more.

Listen to Part 1

Related Content:

[Video] Ag Express at the 2020 Precision Farming Dealer Summit

Full Transcript

Michaela Paukner:
Welcome to the latest episode of the Precision Farming Dealer Podcast, I'm Michaela Paukner, technology editor at Precision Farming Dealer. New episodes of this series are available wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe to get an alert when upcoming episodes are released. Since its start 30 years ago in 1992, Ag Express Electronics has expanded from 10 employees to more than 170, and the company's growth isn't stopping there. Jim Steinke, Ag Express's vice president of sales and marketing says development plans are in the works for three of its facilities, and all levels of leadership are involved to ensure the company is set up for success as it navigates current challenges and prepares for those to come. In part two of this two-part series, Jim talks about Ag Express's expansion plans, the barriers and gaps the company is working to fill, including addressing the ongoing industry-wide supply chain [inaudible 00:01:02] and much more.

Jim Steinke:
My name is Jim Steinke, I am vice president of sales and marketing for Ag Express Electronics. I'm in charge of the marketing and sales efforts of Ag Express. We got started back in 1992, I was employee number 24 in 1998, and we have over 170 employees now.

Michaela Paukner:
Wow.

Jim Steinke:
[Inaudible 00:01:31], that's pretty solid, sustainable growth. It's all caused by being forward-thinking in the industry, and sticking to our core values, sticking to our brand promise. If we do that, I know that we'll be around for another 30 years helping the industry.

Michaela Paukner:
Talking about expanding, coming up at the next few years, what exactly do your plans look like?

Jim Steinke:
Ag Expresses is a company that's growing and we're looking down the future to continue to grow. Our general look at our facilities is we're out of space, we have vocational development plans for Des Moines location, our Sulphur Springs location, and our Grand Island location. So, all three of the service centers, at some point, in some kind of planning of expansion, and that expansion then allows us to buy, and purchase, and manufacture the tooling that we need, and house the employees that we need for the future. Our Warren, Indiana location actually has a large enough facility that we don't have to really worry about. We just have to put the right tooling and right capabilities inside that building, so we can have enough room for everybody that we need to get the job done.

Michaela Paukner:
As Ag Express is growing, and then looking to continue to grow, from a management perspective, what are you doing to ensure that your operations continue to be smooth, and then you're also delivering that high-quality product?

Jim Steinke:
When you start growing, everybody talks about growing pains, and all that stuff. You just have to develop processes that can be flexible, to make adjustments on the fly if you need to, but also rigid enough that you're doing it the same way every time. Our COO, Eric, talks about building the hamburger, building that hamburger. McDonald's built it the same, whether they're in San Francisco, Grand Island, Nebraska, or Tokyo, it's the same, the Big Mac is built the exact same. That's what we're looking for is all four locations being able to do repair services, build cables, engineering services, sales processes. It doesn't matter where you're at and what the customer calls in or needs something taken care of, it's done the exact same. That's through process control, that's through training, that's through growth development plans for our employees.

Jim Steinke:
That, in its own right, sets you up, you have to hire great people to do that. You have to train your management team to be able to communicate the plan clearly, distinctly, all of that has to come through them, because on a daily basis, they're running the show. That has been a little bit of a challenge when you talk about a substantial amount of growth, but I believe in those development services that we're doing. I think the flexibility that we have in moving around pieces will guarantee us to be successful in the future. That being said, you also have to have facility planning, you have to have the facilities to do it. That's where we're getting into what I'm talking about as far as our expansion process or projects, and how that looks. Then setting them up as you build them, set them up based upon what type of environment you're creating.

Michaela Paukner:
Who do you guys have involved in the facility planning from within the company?

Jim Steinke:
Our facility planning is basically done by our CEO and COO, and then the general managers of the individual locations. Our CEO is Craig Murphy, our COO is Eric Randolph, and then the individual locations all have their individual general managers. So, they'll sit down and look at the plans, and figure out what success looks like for the individual locations, and how it works right now, what isn't working, what the plan is moving forward, and then set up the facility for that. They work pretty good together in doing that, as far as I'm concerned.

Michaela Paukner:
You're getting input from each of the locations on that local level, but then you're also getting that big picture input from the CEO and COO to where it sounds like that'll make it really successful.

Jim Steinke:
That's that's the plan, Michaela. That's why you have everybody involved, that's why you have the local level involved, because they know the needs of their localized customers and of the employee base that they have right there within their location. But then you have that high level focus on what's this look like five, 10 years from now? We need to make sure that we're building that for success at that point too, so that's why you have to have that forward-thinking aspect to it also.

Michaela Paukner:
Right. Yeah, are there any other challenges that Ag Express faces today, and what are you doing to address those?

Jim Steinke:
Challenges are something that is dirty word, everybody has the challenges. I like to call them barriers and gaps, and barriers can be removed, and some of those barriers and gaps that we have are caused by basically the society that we live in. Everybody is experiencing similar problems, supply chain issues across the country, across our industry, have made the last two and a half years a real big challenge, so to speak. Every day something else is hard to get, we've fought through microprocessor issues with a product that we manufacture, and have come through on the other side. We've been working with our vendor partners to help them get through all the challenges that they have on the supply chain by offering services that help them. Whatever their gap is, maybe we can fill it. The other thing that we did is we've gone out and grabbed a very talented individual as a material manager, and he's been able to lead and change the way we focus on our inventory and establishing an MRP system, so we can stay in front of some of these supply chain issues.

Jim Steinke:
This just in time inventory control method that was fairly popular maybe five, six years ago, is something that doesn't work right now, because just in time is not in time. So, that's the way I look at it, and if you're still trying to have just in time inventory, not in time. The challenge with that is working with laying out what that looks like to our customers, teaching our customers, training them. Working with them to be able to sustainably get some of their orders in line, and so we can know what we're up against, so we can get our parts ordered, so we can actually produce a product in time. Then working with our vendor partners by giving them dates that we need our product that we sell, and giving that to them in time, so they can do the exact same thing.

Jim Steinke:
That's been a huge challenge, like everybody else in the world, finding enough people has been a challenge. People that are, one, either qualified, or two, just willing to put in the time and effort. I don't really have an answer for that, except we just keep trying. We're very focused on trying to find the right people and then develop the right people, I'm a big proponent of hiring the right person and develop the skill. So, those are... You don't always have to have the skills when you walk in the door, but if they're innately a person that fits your core values, you can find value in that, and you can find a place for them. It might take a little bit, but you can teach them what you need them to know. The third thing that when you asked that question that popped into my head was training, you can never train enough.

Jim Steinke:
I think you could train every day for 365 days a year and never be officially ready to do your job. So, you have to have a training program that makes sense, that's succinct, and it also is something that isn't a waste of time, it's got to be very specific, targeted, focused. We went out and expanded a little bit in our offerings, we've got a product support team that we're developing. Part of that product support team that supports the sales of Ag Express is training, and helping train the sales team, helping train the product support team, so we can be a bigger asset to our customers, and to our vendor partners. It started slowly, it's still progressing, but you have to take your time to build that type of a program. So, we're working through all of those little gaps that we have with those barriers, however you look at them. They challenge us every day, to be honest with you, they challenge me every day, all three of those.

Michaela Paukner:
You could be the next dealership we announce as Precision Farming Dealers 2023 Most Valuable Dealership. Now in its 11th year, our annual program recognizes the organization demonstrating the best in sales, service, and support of precision farming technology. Dealers, manufacturers, and others are invited to participate by nominating top Precision Farming Dealers from across North America. Go to precisionfarmingdealer.com/mbd to nominate a dealer for our 2023 MVD Award and help us recognize North America's premier precision farming operation. Now, let's get back to the conversation. Talking about the training, I know you said it's still progressing, but how have the initial efforts been so far?

Jim Steinke:
My product support manager and I are setting a calendar and we've got goals of how many trainings we want to have for our vendor partners, our products. Whether it's products that we manufacture, products that we sell. The challenge that we have is logistics, to be honest with you, because Zoom, or Teams, or whatever, this digital world that we live in, this two-dimensional world is great. You can get a lot of information, but you can't put your hands on it. A lot of people are hands-on learners, so the challenge of logistics has been something that we have to work through. We're still trying to figure that out, I don't have an answer for that. The plan, communicating with the vendor partner or developing what we're looking for, basically it's rinse and repeat. We need these questions answered, and that's going to spur on conversation.

Jim Steinke:
We bring in a vendor partner to lead it, whether it's a sales training or a product support training, doesn't matter. We're trying to bring in that professional, that person that's the best suited for training, into a facility. Whether then everybody else jumps in on a video call or not, where they're all in the room together, that's kind of dependent on the time of year and what we're training. For me, it's about consistency, and building that program, that training program, with a lot of consistency, so everybody knows what they're expected to learn. If they don't learn that, they're expected to ask, and then whoever's teaching the training, these are their expectations. If we can portray that and do that consistently, all the other stuff I just talked about, the gaps and success, will be minor. Then we'll be able to provide whatever we're looking for at that highest level.

Michaela Paukner:
Right, you mentioned that you're also training your customers to get their orders in line, so you can stay ahead of some of those supply chain challenges. What does that training look like?

Jim Steinke:
I use that word training your customers, because over the years, we kind of created our own animal, they just kind of take it for granted that we're going to have it sitting there on the shelf. They'll call, hey, they got it, we ship it out. So, it's been a little harder with all the supply chain stuff that we had to change some of our manufacturing styles this year to a little more build on demand. It's not the way we're going to go moving forward, but what I mean by training our customers are, hey, we know that you guys sell so many of these different products, why don't we get them on order now? We can set some ship dates that you can expect them by, so you'll have it on time, when you need it for your customers.

Jim Steinke:
It just comes down to the sales team communicating with the customers saying, "Hey, I'd like to take this cable, you guys bought 20 of them last year. So, you think we could pre-order it, put three ship dates, and we get them out to you at these times? Just give me a PO for that." We haven't done a lot of it, someday I hope to say that was a huge success. I think it will be a success, at least for some customers, at some varying degrees. I'm not looking for people to stock a whole ton of stuff, but it's hard for Ag Express to stock stuff with the hopes they're going to sell it too.

Michaela Paukner:
Dealers are dealing with this supply chain issue too, so if they can know what they have and be able to offer that to customers, that's an advantage to them too. It's just a matter of everybody communicating at the right time, so the product is there when they need it.

Jim Steinke:
That's exactly right, because we deal with an industry that is kind of defaulted to that. That's been that way... I've been [inaudible 00:16:28] Ag Express 25 years almost. It's kind of that way with every year, it's the same way. I'm going to get out a little bit earlier this year and get ready, and the fact of the matter is the whole industry works that way. The sooner that we can make some positive steps in preparation of what we're going to need, I think it'll better everybody involved.

Michaela Paukner:
For sure, what do you think that Ag Express is doing really well right now?

Jim Steinke:
I think Ag Express has always been a company that takes care of our customers as well as we can, we take pride in that. What we're doing really well right now is what got us here 30 years ago, provide great service at an affordable price, customize it to our customer's needs, whatever that is. We're customized to dealerships, we're customized to individual farmers, we customize our programs to the OEM partners we work with, we're flexible, and we do that really well. If we continue to focus on our customer first, Ag Express long when I'm gone, will be celebrating a hundred years. That's first and foremost the message that I leave for my sales team every day is you focus on the customer, you be empathetic to their needs, and do your best to help them. Now, we can't guarantee... We don't have everything, we don't have all the answers, but by gosh, we're going to try, and we work real hard at doing that. That's how I answer that question, that's how I'd answer it every time somebody said, so we take care of our customers.

Michaela Paukner:
Well, that's great to hear and more important than ever now when there's so many options, and at the same time, things are in so short supply that everyone is eager to get their hands on whatever they can.

Jim Steinke:
Well, and I'll say this too, Ag express isn't perfect. We do make mistakes, but when a mistake is made, we work extra hard to correct it, and to make sure that customer's experience is still held in high regard. Even if they had something built wrong, or even if something didn't hook up the way that we thought it would, or the software didn't take it, or whatever the case might be, we work really hard to make it right on the backside, if that happens. I don't want to say that we're perfect in any way, we are far from it, but I do know that we work really, really hard at making sure that that customer experience is at the highest level.

Michaela Paukner:
Thanks to Jim Steinke for today's conversation. If you missed part one, in which Jim talks about the history of Ag Express Electronics, it's relationship with dealers and OEMs, and much more, check it out at precisionfarmingdealer.com/podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You'll find dozens of other episodes about precision farming there as well. From all of us here at Precision Farming Dealer, I'm Michael Paukner, thanks for listening.