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On this episode of the Precision Farming Dealer podcast, brought to you by Ag Express, we sit down with 3 precision specialists for a panel discussion about their daily routines, challenges and goals.

Jason Pennycook from Case IH dealer Johnson Tractor, Jordan Batman from John Deere dealer BTI and Curtis Martin from AGCO dealer Agriteer share an intimate look at how they navigate and adapt their daily objectives to be productive and profitable for their dealership. 

The panelists also share some of their biggest obstacles to success, keys for preventing burnout during busy season and outlook on autonomy and other cutting-edge technologies entering the market.

The Precision Farming Dealer podcast series is brought to you by Ag Express.

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Full Transcript

Noah Newman:

Hello and welcome to the Precision Farming Dealer Podcast. I'm your host, Managing Editor Noah Newman, and we are back after a brief hiatus. Big thanks to our sponsor, Ag Express Electronics, for making this podcast series possible. Today, we're sitting down with Jason Pennycook from Case IH dealer Johnson Tractor, Jordan Batman from John Deere dealer BTI, great name, and Curtis Martin from AGCO dealer Agriteer. The three precision specialists share some of their biggest obstacles to success, keys for preventing burnout during busy season, and outlook on autonomy and other cutting edge technologies entering the market. This panel discussion was recorded at this year's Precision Farming Dealer Summit. We've got a lot to talk about. Let's dive right in.

Curtis Martin:

So I'm Curtis Martin from Agriteer in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. The location I work out of Agriteer is a five-location dealership, AGCO dealership. I started out in the technology industry 17 years ago as a precision planning dealer. My role now, just took it on here in October, is Ag Technology Manager, which I'm managing just the technology side of the Agriteer business. So still trying to figure out a little bit what that means, but at the end of the day it's making sure that the rest of the team has the resources they need from a sales and service support perspective. Yeah, so I get to do what I enjoy is helping the growers.

Jason Pennycook:

So I'm going to apologize because I've been catfishing everyone. I need an updated picture.

Noah Newman:

That looks like you.

Jason Pennycook:

I've been getting a lot of grief at work. Some of them have been telling me that obviously I must have a child that looks a lot like me.

Noah Newman:

Oh, man.

Jason Pennycook:

So I work at Johnson Tractor. I've been there for 23 years. I started out in the shop wrenching and then I went to Precision Farming Specialists and now I'm the precision farming manager for Johnson Tractor. We're in North Illinois and all over Wisconsin. We have 11 stores now. My day-to-day is basically still doing sales, keeping track of everything, trying to keep everyone in line, and manage the stress that goes along with that.

Jordan Batman:

So it's my first time here as well. I'm an integrated solution specialist at BTI in our Great Bend location. So we're a six-store John Deere dealership across Kansas. Kind of stretch all the way from Southwest Kansas up towards the central, and then we do have a store in Hoxie that's almost in Nebraska as well. I started back in 2012 for Great Bend Farm Equipment. We were a single store at that time. Kind of came on board in the parts sales side of things. Did that for a year or two and then worked my way into the precision side and been doing it pretty much full-time since the beginning of '14. Day-to-day, mainly just supporting the sales department, making sure they're the equipment they're selling the customer, making sure the customer's equipped, or getting them equipped to whatever they need, equipment, display, harnessing-wise, anything like that, supporting the shop as well.

As all this stuff has really came down the line fast, trying to help keep those guys up to speed, assisting them in difficult troubleshooting or things like that as well. And then also the parts guys, helping them make sure they get the correct parts for all this new stuff that's been coming down the pipeline.

Noah Newman:

Yeah, we started this thing a couple years ago called Precision Specialist Week, and this is how I got, Jordan, your name. We had a nomination come in. It said, "If you Google the term workaholic, I am 97% sure that you would find a picture of Jordan Batman. With a background as a radio frequency transmission specialist in the Air Force National Guard, Jordan's passion for technology has shined through his work in precision agriculture." So I wanted to ask you about that, how you went from military to this line of work.

Jordan Batman:

Yeah. So I actually grew up on our family farm right there in central Kansas. Wheat, corns, milo, soybeans. And so obviously, I was forced to interact with the farm on a daily occurrence and I learned at a pretty young age that I didn't want to farm full-time. So once I graduated high school and then graduated from the JUCO there locally, I enlisted in the Air Force and was going to get out of there. And what you hear a lot, once you actually leave, you appreciate home a little bit more. So I came back. I had worked for a Vermeer Dewey's Arctic Cat dealer through high school and while I was attending JUCO. So I came back and was working there, working on round balers, rakes, installing bale beds, working on four wheelers, all that kind of thing.

And then the owner of the Deere dealership called me at that time and I was tired of pressure washing balers in the winter and beating bearings into rollers and all that. And they offered me to come sit in the AC and sell lawnmowers and parts and all that and I was 100% on board with that. And then like I said, I had the opportunity to move. Having the Air Force knowledge, I knew that going in I wanted to do the military thing, but I also wanted to go into a career field within the military that would have relevancy on the civilian side as well. So having that knowledge and really enjoyed my time in the military, working with satellite, radio, drones, all that kind of stuff, that kind of pointed me in the direction that I wanted to go there. And it's been a really good transition and I learned a lot on the military side that's translated well onto the ag side as well.

Noah Newman:

Well, thank you for your service and, yeah, definitely a unique background. I wanted to ask you guys too, Curtis and Jason. Where are you finding that most of new precision hires are coming from? Have you guys worked with any people from military backgrounds or are you finding them mostly from colleges, high schools, or what would you say about that? Where are the new precision talent you see really coming from? Jason, you want to jump in?

Jason Pennycook:

Yeah, I'll take it. I think it's a little bit of both. It's all over. I don't know if we have one, colleges, military, wherever. It's coming from everywhere. So I think we find it's more of finding the right fit for the organization because technology as a whole, I mean, if they have a basic understanding, we can teach that. Teaching the fact that it is stressful and being personable with people, be able to take some criticism and not take it personally, that's more important to us than where their education came from. I think we can take any person and if they've got the right background and willingness to learn, we can make them a precision farming specialist.

Noah Newman:

Curtis, anything to add to that?

Curtis Martin:

I wouldn't really have a lot to add. I mean, where most of our help would come from, there's a lot of farm. Some folks from a farming background, even some family and friends that they were familiar with like, "Hey, you're looking for a job. You might be the right fit." But I would say having the right personality, like you said, is definitely where you want it to be, and then you can teach the knowledge that you want from there.

Noah Newman:

Think it's pretty crucial though when you're looking to bring someone on board that they have some type of background in ag, just so they understand the hectic nature of planning and harvest and all that?

Curtis Martin:

I would say it helps. I would say I can think of one case in particular where he had very little ag background and he's turned out great.

Noah Newman:

So how common is that where you get a problem from a customer and you're able to walk them through it on the phone or remotely?

Jason Pennycook:

Most problems, I mean, I would say 85% you can walk them through over the phone. Most of the time, it's something they don't have a setting or they didn't set something up right or it's something simple that you can do it. Usually, I give it 10 minutes. If I can't figure it in 10 minutes, we probably need to go there. But most of them, 85% of it you can do over the phone.

Noah Newman:

And your customers. So I'll ask you this, Jordan. Do you have service plans where they have to subscribe to something where they can just give you a call or is there a hotline they call or how does your dealership do it?

Jordan Batman:

So we kind of have a little bit of both. The last few years, we've kind of been transitioning into more of a ... We do have a hotline that is manned by one individual full-time, but similar to what Adam was saying in the entry, it rings everyone's phone at once. Whoever picks it up first gets it, assigns the ticket. We use Expert Connect for that. But as far as during the day, during business hours, the customers can call into the store, get transferred to our desk phones, which goes to our cell phone. They can call the hotline, the guy answering the hotline. Depending on which location that customer's at, he can either deal with it directly over the hotline or transfer it onto the closest tech. So it kind of just depends.

Those of us that have been doing it for long enough and have a good working relationship with that customer, getting them to call the hotline rather than calling your cell phone has been a big struggle. But like I said, we're working through that and the hotline definitely has its place. It's helped take some of the phone call load off and being able to disperse it more evenly. But I would say the majority of my phone calls are still probably coming directly from the customer right to your cell phone.

Noah Newman:

Curtis, at your dealership, how are you guys handling phone calls, especially during busy season?

Curtis Martin:

Yeah, so that was a couple years ago. That was actually, I would say, a pretty big issue for us. Myself and a couple others were taking a lot of personal cell phone calls and it was just getting to a point where you couldn't get back to everybody in a day's time. So we did implement a hotline with a phone queue and I'd say that seemed to work out really well. I was going to say very similar with what you say here, that most of issues we can solve over the phone. And also, and we might get into this some, we're starting to do a lot of display trainings right ahead of season and that has drastically reduced our in-season phone calls. So I'm not sure which one has been better, but I would say this past spring has been one of the best I've had in quite a while.

Noah Newman:

Good to hear. Yeah, I heard that doesn't Deere have an app, too, that people can go to learn about how to fix certain things with their equipment? And you're kind of using that, as Curtis was talking about, to train the customer to help cut down and to make them maybe try to solve the problem first before they pick up the phone?

Jordan Batman:

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Equipment mobile, it's all tied in with the operation center where a customer can individually load their specific equipment in, have direct links to operators' manuals, parts manuals, that kind of stuff right on their phone, quick start guides for all the different equipment, initial settings for a combine for wheat or vacuum settings and everything else for planting corn, things like that where they can do a lot of that themselves if they're willing to. Like I said, that has been a struggle trying to get the guys to actually try a little bit themselves before just picking up the phone and calling. But especially with the number of them compared to the number of us, if they want to get going quicker, they've learned that they can at least try and see if they can help themselves first before making that phone call.

Noah Newman:

Jason, how much has the role of precision specialist evolved since you started doing this a long time ago?

Jason Pennycook:

Yeah, back before the fire. Yeah, it's changed a lot. When you first started, the main thing was guidance. When I first started, that was our main push on everything was just guidance. You would put guidance on everything. I mean, now we're down to working with cameras on sprayers and the technology is integrated into everything. It's not just one aspect of it. It's every aspect of it. Everything we touch has technology of some kind on it. And I think that the biggest thing with that is there's more people we deal with on a daily basis. There is more challenges and more learning. So if you get behind on any training, once you get behind it takes a while to get caught back up so you got to stay on top of it. So I think that's the biggest thing we run into anymore is getting everyone trained, keep their training current so going forward, we don't get behind. Especially with any new products because every time they come out with a new product, there's more training and troubleshooting and maybe headaches depending on how new the product is.

Noah Newman:

And are you guys all pretty much Swiss Army knives, like you do sales and service calls and everything? Sales too?

Jason Pennycook:

Yeah.

Noah Newman:

So Jordan, what's the key to selling new technology to customers? How do you sell it to them? Million-dollar question.

Jordan Batman:

I mean, you got to prove the value to them, make them understand and realize how it can benefit their operation specifically. Show that ROI, say it costs X amount upfront, but it's going to save you quite a bit in the long run and you'll be in the black in the next year or two. Especially as all this is changing, at least on Deere's side, is all the subscriptions as a service, the year-in and year-out subscriptions on anything and everything, trying to prove that value and make them understand what they're paying for, why they're paying for it, what it's actually doing, how's it benefiting their operation. And then just goes all the way back to just the generic relationship with your customer. People buy from people. So you got to have a good friendship, working relationship with them as well.

Noah Newman:

So the relationship doesn't end with the sale, just starts with the sale once you sell something.

Jordan Batman:

Yeah, or continues. Yeah.

Noah Newman:

Curtis, what would you say are some of the challenges or maybe barriers to technology adoption that you're seeing out there?

Curtis Martin:

That's a good question. I would say understanding the value a little bit like he said, but I feel like 10 years ago, 15 years ago, a lot of the sales of technology went to the early adopters, the ones that were most comfortable. They were ready to get that next piece of cutting edge technology. Well, now you start having more of the majority in the middle that it comes with the equipment now. They have to learn how to run this stuff, I mean, not really by their choice. And so whenever you're talking about it, and then also it's like, well, you have this technology that's been around for 10 years, let's say. They might want a new planner, but are they going to be able to run that technology? And so helping them understand what they're getting into has been a little bit of a challenge. Not every piece of technology is for everyone.

Noah Newman:

Gotcha. So we do this Precision Farming Dealer benchmark survey where we ask precision dealers a ton of questions and one of the questions we ask is biggest challenges for 2026. So here are some answers. We got, "Technology moves so fast," "Lack of Case IH support, especially trading." Jason, I don't know if you wrote that one in or not. "Whole good sales down 20 to 30%," "Finding a full-time precision specialist," "Economy," "Commodity prices," "High inputs," "Getting customers to understand the ROI," "Billing what should be billed to customers." That's an interesting one. "The competition," "Keeping qualified specialists," "Lack of new products from our major manufacturer to keep us on par with other majors." So can you guys relate to any of these challenges, Jason, or anything jump out here that you guys are dealing with at Johnson Tractor? Anything surprise you up there?

Jason Pennycook:

Nothing surprises me. Training with anyone is, I mean, always a big thing. Lack of product to keep up with our major competitors. I don't care who you are. That's always going to be a problem because the grass is always greener on the other side.

Noah Newman:

Good point.

Jason Pennycook:

So yes. Does everyone else have stuff that we would love to have as a dealer? Yes. Do we have stuff that other people would want? Yes. It goes both ways. So we just hope and we just keep passing on to the OEMs that, "Hey, here's what people are asking for. Let's make this a priority so we can get that to our customers on our side and not just from someone else."

Noah Newman:

Jordan, what do you think? Anything up here that kind of caught your attention like, "Ah, I deal with that too."

Jordan Batman:

Most of them, they all look pretty familiar. I would say the training from the corporate side down, ever since COVID, it seems like the in-person trainings, that kind of stuff has really fallen off. And a lot of times as a dealership, you're calling in to the engineers or whatever and needing help. A lot of times, you know more than the person you're calling, which is frustrating from a dealer perspective when you've exhausted all your avenues and you're down to the point where you have to deal with DTAC or CCMS on Deere's end and you get a kid that graduated college that's in front of a computer that's never even seen a tractor in real life. So that's definitely been a struggle.

At our dealership, we've had a real big influx of younger people. So a lot of those guys that had a lot of experience, especially on the older stuff, they've retired or moved on. And so we have a lot of guys that were not around when some of that stuff in the late 2000s, early '10s came out. So they haven't been around it, but there's still very much of that out in the field, operating year to year. So being able to, on the Deere side, going from one phone call. You get a brown box air seater question and then the next one you're getting a call on a See & Spray sprayer. So having the personnel at the dealership that can switch gears like that from phone call to phone call and keeping that internal training up to put the best product and support out to the customer that's spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars on this equipment has been an ongoing struggle.

Noah Newman:

Well said. Curtis, anything you'd like to add to the list or anything you could relate to up there?

Curtis Martin:

I might make a comment on the whole good sales thing. So I would say a lot of our sales in the last couple years coming out of COVID has been whole good sales. Well, we know that's tanked down like crazy. And so I'd say a challenge that I've put in front of our sales team is look for opportunities to maybe offer a retrofit option. The customer may not want to make a change on his piece of equipment, but maybe there's opportunity to help improve his operation with some technology. So I don't see it necessarily as much of a challenge as is an opportunity for this year.

Noah Newman:

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Another question we asked was by what year do you expect autonomous driving tractors will represent 10% of new tractor sales? A lot of 2030s in there. "A couple years until performance meets early adopters' expectation." "Technology is already there, but it will take time for farm profitability to allow more farmers to take risks on new technology." "2050," one person said, "cost and feasibility." Another 2030. "Not enough buy-in from the customer base." "Industry not ready for liability support." "Farmers accepted technology." "Slow development." And then someone sold two autonomous grain cart kits this year, "Still think we're five years out until we hit the 10% mark." So Jason Pennycook, autonomy. What do you think?

Jason Pennycook:

Oh, it's 2040, 2050 probably. I mean, it's there. We will see partial autonomy. I think that is going to be a lot quicker. We'll see that within 10 years. I mean, we're starting to see some partial autonomy now. Fully autonomous, in my opinion, I don't feel that 600, 700 horsepower tractors are really the market for autonomous. I agree with the smaller. It needs to be smaller and we need to find an insurance company. Who will insure it? I think that's going to be a bigger problem than making the tech ... They can make most of this work now. Finding someone who will insure it I think is going to be the biggest challenge.

Noah Newman:

Jordan, what do you think?

Jordan Batman:

I mean, I've been around the Deere autonomous doing tillage with the VT and stocks and stuff. Like I said, I mean, as far as the capability, yeah. You could probably basically take it to market now. But I do feel like, especially with the cost of what it's going to be right out of the gate, you're looking at a very small, probably, portion of your customers that would even be interested in it. But yeah, I would say until they get all the bugs worked out, and that's the thing. If you have, like I said, one major insurance incident, something like that, it could set the whole thing back five, 10 years. And with all the technology we have now, you could go with turn automation and implement guidance and AutoPath and all that kind of stuff. The guy in the cab, if you set all that stuff up, I mean, he's basically just a passenger anyway and it's just the first line of defense if something does go wrong. But as far as fully autonomy, I would say, yeah. We're at least a good, probably, 10 years away minimum.

Noah Newman:

Where do you come out on it, Curtis? 10 years, 20, 30?

Curtis Martin:

I guess I'm probably going to land in that five to 10-year range, 10 years probably. It might be sooner than that. I mean, to representing 10% of new tractor sales, that's a pretty aggressive number. I mean, in our area, small fields and obstacles like rocks and trees in the middle of the field, personally, I see that as a challenge. I had one customer that I said something to about autonomy a couple of years ago and he said, "That's what makes me a farmer." He's like, "I want to drive that tractor and not have that tractor drive itself." But we'll see. It'll be interesting.

Noah Newman:

Always a hot topic at Precision events, autonomy. I might be putting you guys on the spot with this one, but feel free to, whoever wants to jump in and answer this one. So they want to know if expense wasn't a concern, what's one addition you'd like to see your dealership make to take its precision business to the next level? So if expense wasn't a concern, and I guess personnel too, what's one addition you'd like to see your dealership make to take precision business to the next level? Anyone in the room?

Jason Pennycook:

I got a blank checkbook so of course we'd have a few more people, but I would also have a completely set up, I guess, let's say, trailer for training with displays, simulators, components that we can set up, harness boards for internal training. If I'm going to spend the money, I would spend the money on training for customers and internal staff and be able to keep that current. Because that's the biggest problem we have with anything now is you set up something and a year later, it's outdated, so then you got all the stuff you're tearing off and restarting. If money's not an option, I'd keep it up to date. We'd have it all the time.

Noah Newman:

Good answer. What do you guys think? Jordan, Curtis, do you have any answers on that one?

Jordan Batman:

Yeah, I would agree with that. Being able to maintain that constant equipment, everything you need to be able to train, internal, external. And then yeah, just the staffing within the precision ag departments. Sometimes it's kind of hard to put a number on that support and being able to bring someone in, take the time to train them, or bring someone in that has the experience of what that's going to cost. And then with sales, you can track their sales every year and it's kind of easy to put dollars and cents towards your input as a company. But on the precision side, it's a little bit different because you could contribute to that next customer buying their next piece of equipment or whatever if you take one phone call on a Saturday afternoon. So staffing within the precision department, I would think, would be up there if you could afford to pay somebody that's good at every location. That'd be one I would put up there.

Noah Newman:

What's your big focus in the winter, Curtis? And when you leave the summit here, do you guys do a lot of clinics or demos or training? What are you guys focusing on?

Curtis Martin:

Yeah, so we'll be doing clinics and then training. So we try to put on clinics. Of course, we're a five-location dealership and so we've got a couple of different locations with our clinics here in the next couple weeks actually. And then right ahead of season, like end of March, beginning of April, we'll do some display trainings, bring customers in with our own displays, and just make sure our software is updated if it hasn't been already, or just, "Let's go through it. Here's some new updates that's come out with the software in last year and there might be some additional features to go to the field with."

Noah Newman:

Nice. Jason, what kind of customer events are you guys working on?

Jason Pennycook:

So all our clinics and training events. So over the next two months, we've got multiple events all over the place. We'll go through planners and spring tillage, stuff like that. For one, we'll go through Case IH field ops, their data platform. We'll have trainings on that. Usually come after the beginning of January, that's when we start getting ready for those and start doing all our clinics and trainings.

Noah Newman:

Does BTI equipment do a lot of off-season clinics? What do you think is the key to a good customer clinic?

Jordan Batman:

Five years ago, 10 years ago, we did a lot more than what we do now. We've kind of noticed as the equipment, especially planners, things like that has changed so much from customer to customer, trying to have one clinic for everyone to attend. I mean, you're having to hit it really high level to be able to touch everybody. So as far as the clinics on getting down to specifics, we've kind of went more so the route of doing equipment startups with the customer in the field. Or before the season, one-on-one with that customer with their specific piece of equipment and you can go over it exactly as it's performed or functioned.

We do have clinics set up at our stores for operation center classes here. I think we have one at every store basically starting ... I think it starts next week up until the middle of February. Just trying to get guys to make accounts that don't have them yet, getting all that data off displays that aren't connected with the JDLink modem up into the operations center. But as far as the training and all that, it's been more so more down to one-on-one in the field, that kind of stuff.

Noah Newman:

So when you think back about 2025, Curtis, how would you sum it up? Challenging year? What's kind of your post-game recap for 2025 and what's got you excited for the new year here?

Curtis Martin:

Yeah, I would say 2025 was honestly ... If there was any challenge, it was actually making the sales. There was a lot of interest in equipment, but then there was a lot of we just weren't getting a lot of phone calls that [inaudible 00:27:41] here. And so 2025, I would say it was kind of a down year, flat year for us as far as technology sales. Went well from a support standpoint because we weren't overwhelmed with a lot of new equipment out there. Yeah. 2026, we'll see where it shakes out at, but I'm excited for the opportunities there.

Noah Newman:

Jason, 2025 recap. Did you learn anything new? Was it a pretty challenging year for you guys or what?

Jason Pennycook:

We learned new ways to have objections to a sale. So that being said, I mean, sales overall were flat. I mean, there was no big thing. The biggest thing, I think, we had to deal with is the fact that there was a lot more nos before you got a yes. I mean, we were still selling stuff. It's just you got to knock on a lot more doors to actually get a sale. And I think going forward, I think if commodity prices come up a little bit ... I mean, farmers are going to buy equipment, they're going to update ... You just need to make sure you're out there talking to them so they know you're an option when they have that thought that they need to update.

And that's the biggest thing is just we've had a long streak where you didn't have to do a lot of running around to make sales. They came to you. This is going to make it where now we're going back to, "No, now you got to put a little more work in to get a sale. You're not going to get as many coming to you." And that's going to be the biggest challenge, I think, even coming for '26. We're going to have to do a little more legwork to get the sales.

Noah Newman:

Have you found that to be the case for you as well, Jordan? You had to turn up the aggression meter a little bit in 2025?

Jordan Batman:

Yes and no. I mean, the new sales on the whole good sales side was definitely down. I think we were around that 20% to 30% this year as well which, I mean, you kind of saw that coming and we just kept riding the wave. And then '25 was kind of when that finally came to fruition and things really fell off. But also, that allowed the used market and the auction market, even though we weren't selling that newer equipment, there was a lot of newer equipment that was winding up in our AOR that we were still supporting. So whether that was somebody with a competitive tractor or a competitive planner and making that stuff together, there were some opportunities to sell displays, receivers, things like that. And then all in all, I think on the precision side it was a good year for us.

And when they're not buying equipment, they have to work on what they have. So we saw almost record years in our parts and service departments on the aftermarket side of things just because if they're not buying equipment, then they've got to maintain what they have.

Noah Newman:

Yeah.

Jordan Batman:

So no, it was a good year and I expect probably more of the same in '26. There's going to be sales out there, but yeah, you're going to have to work for them and you're going to have to continue to support and maintain those relationships on the guys that are running not the brand new stuff as well.

Noah Newman:

So I'm going to ask you guys to stare into your crystal ball here. Curtis, we'll start with you. What's one piece of technology that you see really taking off that maybe isn't necessarily mainstream right now or is just on the verge of becoming mainstream?

Curtis Martin:

I would say it's machine learning and sensors, like cameras and that kind of thing, is where I see it taking off and being a big benefit.

Noah Newman:

Good answer. Jason?

Jason Pennycook:

It's going to be really similar to that. Visual cameras and learning for spraying and other applications to help save on inputs and that, and be more accurate and not just be in a specific window of crops it works on, but a broader range. I think once they get a broader range, I think that will take off huge.

Noah Newman:

So the smart sprayer ...

Jason Pennycook:

Smart spray kind of technology, yeah. I mean, there's still a few issues with some of it now, but I think once they get that broader range and get a few of the bugs worked out, I think that will be huge.

Noah Newman:

Jordan, you agree? The cameras?

Jordan Batman:

Right on line. Yeah. I mean, we've had a lot of exposure and experience with See & Spray already. For just six stores, I think this year we had 54 See & Spray units out ...

Noah Newman:

Wow.

Jordan Batman:

Which was, I think, about the most in the United States. And that technology as they continue to build on that, limiting the inputs, getting over more acres, being more efficient, I think that's just going to be ... I mean, it's on just the sprayer for right now, but the camera technology, being able to do that kind of stuff is the biggest, I think, market or avenue for precision ag to really explode here in the next five years or so. Maybe even quicker than that, depending on how this technology kind of grows.

Noah Newman:

What's the setup process like that, for the See & Spray? You have to have a lot of people from the dealership come out there and help them calibrate everything?

Jordan Batman:

Most of the time. So when it first came out, basically everything was done with a PUK or performance upgrade kit where we took an ExactApply sprayer that already had ExactApply, and then we added See & Spray Premium to it. Now with '25, you're able to order it from the factory with See & Spray Premium, or you also had the Select machine or the Ultimate machine. So either way, whether it was ordered from the factory with it or installed at the dealership. And then yeah, all the cameras need calibrated. Software was coming out faster than you could get it done. Depending on what type of See & Spray machine, you had all the VPUs back there, six or 10 of them, depending on whether it was a Premium or an Ultimate, plus all the machine controllers. The shop went out to fix a mechanical issue and they updated one controller, but didn't do everything else and it created a huge mismatch. And then you're out there pushing all the payloads to bring everything else back up to match to get the machine to function.

If they hit a guy wire or hit the irrigation pivot or messed up a harness, I mean, it kind of brings the whole thing down. So it's very intense as far as keeping them up and running if a customer starts damaging stuff. As far as the technology, working how it's supposed to, things like that, once you have everything updated, calibrated, configured correctly in the display, we really have had awesome luck with it and the savings we've seen have been impressive on chemical.

Noah Newman:

So 53 of your customers or 54 are using that right now? That's a lot.

Jordan Batman:

54 units.

Noah Newman:

54 units.

Jordan Batman:

Yeah. Yeah. Some customers with multiple, but most of them, yeah, one or so.

Noah Newman:

Nice. All right, so words of advice here. I don't know if you guys ... So this is, Jason, your coworker, Jay Monson, his retirement speech here. Let's see if we can hear it here.

Jay Monson:

Another thing I always took to heart is if you like what you're doing, it's not really a job. Okay? That's one thing that's always felt good to me is I like coming to work. I like working with people, but now it's time to move on and drive my wife absolutely [inaudible 00:34:31].

Noah Newman:

There you go. So Jay was a longtime, what, manager. So Curtis, if you could give the Curtis of 17 years ago some advice or anyone here advice, what would you say?

Curtis Martin:

Yeah, I would say keep pursuing what you enjoy. I mean, I've heard it time and again. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, it's time for a change. And so for me, learn to know people. Learn to interact. Learn to communicate. It's always been a challenge for me and it's something that I've tried to work on for myself.

Noah Newman:

I like it. Jason, what about you? Would you echo your coworkers?

Jason Pennycook:

Well, I was going to say McDonald's is a good choice.

Noah Newman:

McDonald's?

Jason Pennycook:

Yeah. No, I'm kidding. No. Yeah, you got to like what you're doing and I think the one thing I would tell myself was it's okay to take that half a day off to go do something and don't just work yourself to death. I think that would be the biggest thing I would tell myself. You can take a day off. It's not the end of the world.

Noah Newman:

Jordan, anything to add to that?

Jordan Batman:

Yeah. I mean, definitely don't overwork yourself. It's easy to, especially in this role. Because as long as that phone's in your pocket, you can't really get away from it and your customers expect you to answer that thing anytime of day. But I do think that's kind of a thing I enjoy the most about this position, this role. You're working with all kinds of different customers about every piece of equipment that's on the farm so every day is a different challenge. You're bouncing from season to season, day to day. You're working on anything and everything, as well as helping train the younger people in your dealership. Yeah, it's very rewarding. I've enjoyed it a lot.

Noah Newman:

And that'll wrap things up for this edition of the Precision Farming Dealer Podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks once again to our sponsor, Ag Express Electronics. For more information about Ag Express Electronics and their solutions, head to agxpress.com. Until next time, for all things Precision Farming Dealer related, head to precisionfarmingdealer.com. I'm Noah Newman. Have a great day.