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cropsey, il 61731 | Sometimes it boils down to relationships with the local folks. I like to think of it as not putting myself in a position for others to 'sin against me'. In the past some of the local places (that are not small), too often, have had issues and it was my fault even if all I did was pay the bill. At that point I decided rather to be angry at the situation, I'd just get my own sprayer and pay myself to screw it up. It's worked out. To the defense of the custom guys, I had a custom license and did some spraying to help pay for the sprayer and the only time something would go wrong would be on a customer's field. Some of it was just the situation I was pushed into, but for the most part I think all the custom guys deal with some tough circumstances.
The local places also had better customers than others and when I was paying almost 2x the price of ".com" or other wholesalers I decided the local places were sending a message. I'm small so the savings is a big deal to me an my family. Maybe the coop doesn't care about $10-15K, but I do.
We appear to be coming on times when sharper pencils will be necessary to stay somewhat profitable. We are not in a business where we know what we will grow or earn each year and when pricing opportunities don't look as good as years past it seems like a good idea to reduce our cost structure.
Like MJL, we do manure - hey it's free if you don't count the tankers and machinery to get it hauled (or pay $35K to have it done). Not complaining, but it is a way for me to keep costs down - just don't buy anything "new" to help make hauling easier (like we do almost every year) then it's just fuel and labor and more work. | |
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Equal pricing vs Equitable Pricing
