Ag-chieve vs. Farmlink

[manager]

Just wondering if anyone out there can give me an
opinion on which marketing consulting firm would be
more beneficial? I have been against this whole fad of
ag consultants in all areas but I am having a weak
moment. Does anyone else think that these
consultants are just a result of farmers be more
profitable now and need a place to spend money or is
the opposite the case? In any scenerio, what are
people's thoughts?

[macdon02]

My opinion is they dont know anymore than you do. If they did know more they wouldn't be working for grain farmers. I have no experience with these two outfits but just opinion of market consultants in general. If you know your actual costs you can make better decisions than someone with no skin in the game. just my two cents

[TOM4CWB]

manager,

Today... the name of the game is information management. There is so much info... that overload is certain unless you employ a system to get the best info... apply it... and weed out other information that is less relevant.

Check out clients... see what they think... perhaps some will post their thoughts!

[btjadenlepp]

Some of those points are fair but I strongly disagree that we don't have any 'skin in the game'.

We didn't start FarmLink to make a bunch of money off the grain markets because we have some kind of crystal ball, we wanted to build a service that would improve producers' marketing performance. Everyone who works for us has a direct tie to a family farm. Our earliest clients when we were building the business were all friends and family, which put a lot of pressure on us personally to get it right.

We aren't smarter than our clients but we are going to improve their grain selling performance because we are focused. Our team spends all day doing it, and we have a lot of experience as a group.

The other point is that there is a lot of work involved in marketing and often it makes sense to hire some help. kind of like doing your own taxes or hiring an accountant - under which scenario do you keep more cash at home, trust the results are optimal, and generally enjoy your life more?

www.farmlinksolutions.ca

Final point - we are happy to provide client referrals on request.

[parsley]

Ask yourself these questions:

1. Who knows your farm better than anyone else?

2. Does a 22 year old ag grad assigned to you have knowledge based upon experience?

3. If you are farming short-time, you may be able afford to take the trendy "trend" advice now fallen by the wayside(...spray wall to wall as many times as possible/ break up every slough and every bush on your farm and cultivate right to the roadside/butter is a saturated fat and will kill you/buy pigs...buy pigs...buy elk) but if you are in it for the longhaul, is your advice forward-generational thinking?

4. Will privacy be breached, or do the advisors sell your information?
(A family member's girlfriend studying her masters in a famous American University, only to inform me she was basing her thesis on Saskatchewan health patient data, sold to them by Saskatchewan). And how will you know really know?
5. Who does the final responsibility lie wit for really bad advice?(Even an apology is impossible to get these days, with the exception of the Catholic Churches in Ireland and Germany)

6.What's your benchmark for the fee's worth?

7.Are there comparable/better sources of information online?

Food for thought. Pars

7.

[bgmb]

4. Is a big one to me I think some of these organizations are actually more based on selling our information to our suppliers and buyers of our products. Not going to name names just saying.

[JoeyPotato]

I was wondering how long it would take you to post
on this topic Brenda. It seems when it comes to self
promotion, it never takes too long.

[parsley]

bgmb

Astute, you are.

A small icon imbedded in a website or a 'hot' link that you click on keeps track of all your activity.

Your farm information is crucial to someone selling you say,farm chemicals.

The guy who sells cars gives you twenty bucks for a tip.

Farmers give away their info.

I told the feds to take their survery and....., well, they phoned to threaten me (in my mellow days), saying they could put me in jail but I would have gladly gone.

They blinked. Never had another survey from them. It's legislation that needs changing. Pars

[bgmb]

Yep the seed and chem companies get to find out exactly how much they can charge and still let us make a few cents to keep us in business.

Weed out the inefficient cause they can charge efficient operators more.

Very sneaky indeed only took me a couple years to figure it out what was really going on.

not necessarily speaking to either of the organizations in this post don't know much about them but i do know agchieve doesn't collect financial information but farmlink I'm not sure.

[FrankB]

Has anyone considered Farms.com Risk Management. I heard that Moe Augistino does a great job. Alot of ontario producers are using them. They are switching over from a Cargill or DePutter to them. Moe does alot of learning tours with FCC in Western Canada as well. I heard they have their own skin in the game, a 2000 acre cash crop operation in Port Dover Ontario. Guess Moe does all the marketing for the farm. I heard this from a buddy who is on a trial to receive their marketing info. Wouldn't hurt to try them out. My buddy gave me their website www.riskmanagemen.farms.com

Hope this helps.

[FrankB]

Hey everyone sorry made a mistake.

www.riskmanagement.farms.com

Check it out

[btjadenlepp]

That's fair Joey, traditional advertising is really expensive compared to posting here, which I enjoy doing anyway.

More and more though, I feel like I have to stick up for our company and our staff on this site as crazy suggestions about our motives are made.

We're making an honest buck here helping some produers sell at higher prices. That's it.

www.farmlinksolutions.ca

[mbratrud]

I make it my business to know my competitors, and beings my company isn't one of the options I will just throw in my 2 bits. These are 2 VERY different organizations. One offers cheap information, and the other offers information and help with execution. Do your homework and ask for references from both of them.