A private equity executive called me looking for information on the market potential for the high speed discs that were penetrating the North American market after being introduced in Europe. He said, “We need whatever you have, I don't care what it costs, we need this report. It's very important to us.” I knew we didn't have anything on the market size, although Dave Kanicki had written a lot about the subject matter in our “How to Sell” series and other articles.

Kim Schmidt was on her way to the SIMA show in Paris, but I gathered up several of us (Kanicki, Patrick Sharpe and Bree Greenawalt) in Dad’s office for a stand-up meeting.

In about 10 minutes, we came up with a plan to conduct the research and prepare a for-sale report — unaware if we’d ever see a nickel for it. We left that meeting ready to pound out a survey to determine what dealers expected in the way of demand for this class of tillage tools and what type of farmer would adopt it.

The email distribution list was prepared at the same time Kanicki and I were working on the questions, and before the survey went out, our marketing department let the manufacturers know that a report would soon be available for purchase, with a protected exclusivity period of 90 days, for someone who might want it. 

And all this happened in the timeline below. And 26 minutes after sending the email, we had a buyer of the exclusive rights to the research, meaning the others would wait until their reports were distributed. 

“That set the stage for, of course, future projects like that,” says Kanicki. “But it all happened very quickly. That was a fun project.”

The company who bought the exclusive rights was not the same company that called with the original request so there was definitely some movement in the market. And we had a very upset major-line manufacturer, when they learned they couldn’t get the report for another 90 days. They attempted every bit of leverage they could think of to encourage us to back out on what we’d promised the exclusive-rights buyer. Of course, we didn’t respond to that request, though it was necessary to correct some untrue claims made and remind them that they had been slow to act on the exclusivity. 

By June, the promotions for the report secured 23 purchasers and resulted in another VIP subscription upgrade. We’d captured all our expenses before we invested a single labor hour in the messaging, surveying, interviewing and writing.

It’s a great culture story that shows that even as we've grown to a 40-person company, we still can be as agile as in the skeleton-staff days.