Back in the late 1970s when I started in the retail farm equipment industry, Implement and Tractor was the go-to magazine to see what was happening on the cutting edge. I loved Bill Fogarty’s articles and Dr. Weber’s sarcastic humor on the last page of most issue – telling us all how misguided we are. There were stories about dealer expansions, mergers and retirements. The interviews with some of the larger International Harvester (IH) dealers always interested me because running a successful (and big) dealership was always in my dreams.

I don’t know the point in my career when I quit paying attention to Implement and Tractor (eventually acquired by Farm Equipment), but as dealership numbers started to dwindle and a few more forms of communication began to develop, somehow Implement and Tractor got lost in the shuffle. At least on my desk.

I remember first seeing Farm Equipment Magazine in the early part of the new millennium and was impressed by the colorful artwork and updated look. This was also a time when our dealership was starting to really gain traction. With that traction was substantial growth – more techs, bigger trucks, updated facilities and better technology. And every month Farm Equipment Magazine was cranking out relevant articles. I can’t credit this magazine for every successful step we made, but they were either the origin or a reinforcement of someone else’s idea that we employed.

Editor Mike Lessiter asked me my opinion on the greatest advances in the retail farm equipment industry during my career. Here are my answers in chronological order starting in the summer of 1976 when I first hit the road selling: 

1. John Deere Sound Guard Cab. Ok, it was a couple years old by then, but it was a far superior cab to any other competitor. IH eventually came with the 86 series that was an attempt to catch up. Case and Allis also followed suit. But John Deere paved the way for better operator safety and comfort.
2. Max-Emerge Planter. Being a red dealer all my life it’s hard to give my top two advancements to JD, but there is no doubt that the finger pickup brought a whole new way of thinking with even spacing AND depth control.
3. Electronic Record Keeping. First by mail, then in house. This got dealers starting to think about departmentalization and the building blocks for successful service, parts, and sales departments. 
4. World Wide Web. The internet brought a whole new dimension to farm equipment marketing and dealing with both suppliers and customers. 
5. Auto Guidance. This is by far my favorite technology piece in my career. I couldn’t drive a tractor in a straight line in the field 45 years ago and I still can’t do it now. But I did learn to push a few buttons and my corn rows are just as straight as anyone else’s today.

Mike also asked me to describe the biggest differences in dealerships between where I started and where we are today. My son and niece (who are now shareholders of our family dealerships) get tired of my brother Eric and me telling stories of the good old days. We used to drive new combines from East Moline to our store in southern Wisconsin – 150 miles at about 13 mph – because we were too broke to purchase a semi and lowboy trailer.

Once we got the combine to our store, we had to pre-deliver it outside because we didn’t have a door big enough to fit inside. I look back at the old days and wonder how we sold as much as we did without the communication abilities we have today. 

The other big change for us was focus. When I started selling, my dad and his partner handled 2 tractor lines and 4-5 lines of hay tools in addition to numerous tillage and material handling products. We also sold household appliances, water softeners, hardware and numerous lawn mowers. Fortunately, the dealership quit hatching baby chicks a couple years before my time.

While our dealership is substantially larger today with multiple locations and about 40 times as many employees, we better define our target markets and focus on core products instead of trying to be everything to everybody.

If I look back at Farm Equipment Magazine for influences on our dealership, I point to things like the Big Dealer Report, the 2012 Dealership of the Year interviews (and subsequent Alumni features), nice visuals on new dealer facilities and, of course, new products such as the current buzz on electric vehicles and autonomous tractors and combines. You don’t see much about our industry in the Wall Street Journal.

Farm Equipment Magazine continues to be the primary source of industry news for dealerships like ours. In whatever media format Farm Equipment Magazine continues in the future, I’m pretty sure it will continue to be the leading source of information about our industry in whatever form it’s delivered.