Are You Always Running Out of Time?

This article is based upon the teaching of author Steve Chandler, whose work I admire and follow closely. However, the story is also based upon an actual Client relationship of mine.

On our way to an important bank meeting, my client turned to me and said, “I wish I had more time to prepare for this – I’ve been so busy I didn’t do a thing for the meeting.” “Are you kidding?” I asked. Busy? Doing what? So we analyzed it: 84 hours per week at the dairy, 21 hours firefighting, and 18 hours in meetings!

In a typical week, the rest of his time was spent playing defense – filling out numerous forms, answering many “urgent” requests, and returning calls. He was spending about 6 of the 18 hours in meetings, listening to others talk about what they’re going to do or have recently done. He spent about 45 minutes actually doing work on new projects he’s currently involved in. And he spent exactly 15 minutes a week on inventing his next breakthrough steps.

WOW!!! This is frightening! Is this why this client entered the dairy business? Hardly. What’s the solution?

*    Better Time Management – Perhaps

*    Better Prioritization – Probably

*    More Delegation of Decision Making – Definitely

*    More Outsourcing – No Question! Especially in the areas of government and environmental reporting.

The reason it’s scary is because if you do the math of what his business actually gets paid for, it’s precisely the opposite of the way my Client was spending his time. When he goes on vacation, those minutes of “urgent emergencies” just sit there, and nothing particularly horrible happens. And in the rare weeks when he doubles his big-thinking time, he’s likely to come up with an insight that will pay the bills for the next six months or even a year.

As author Seth Godin says: “So, do you really think you’re too busy to work on something remarkable? In fact, you’re actually too busy to do all that (non-urgent) emergency stuff.” Think about it!

Ahead of the Game!

I love the following quote from General Eric Shinseki of the U.S. Army: “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” What is he saying? We’ve got to keep up with change! Be like the Boy Scouts, who are always ready to – “Improvise, Adapt, & Overcome!” Every producer has lots of new challenges: Higher Feed Expenses, Rising Insurance Costs, and more Government Regulations. We are in a constantly changing industry environment where decisions we made five years ago are not necessarily as effective as they previously were. It is time for each of us to take back the reins of the decision-making process and adopt a more proactive approach moving forward. Management consultant Peter Drucker stated that, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” Yes, you’re saying, but how can I do that, since I’m a “Price Taker” when it comes to my milk price, and under the present circumstances? I’ll tell you how – get out from under those circumstances. Change your thinking. Alter your approach. It has been said that if you keep on doing what you’ve been doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve been getting…I contend that simply may not be true. In some cases, your results could be worse! So, what do we need to do?

  • Embrace change as you encounter it. Of course, we all like the familiarity of our normal day-to-day processes. At times, I am guilty of this, too. However, when things are changing as rapidly as they are in the dairy industry today, we run the risk of getting “run over” if we simply stand still.
  • You are thinking that you just finished restructuring your bank debt and have most of your vendor payables caught up (hopefully). You’re asking: “Can’t I stop and take a break?” My advice: Do so at your own risk.

Take the time to check all of your efficiency measures, and I do not mean just your costs/cwt. These are important, but be sure to look closely at other measures such as cows milked/hour, pounds of milk shipped/full time worker, the average age of your first lactation females at calving, and feed efficiency (pounds of energy corrected milk/pounds of dry matter fed). Improving these items could save your business. Think about it!

How Does He Do It?

In this blog, I thought I’d share some thoughts on efficiency.  The efficiency measure I want to discuss, though, is one tied to the conversion of assets into bottom line profits. Dairymen often ask, “I’m milking 600 cows and netted about $800 per cow last year.  This year I’m not even breaking even.  How does that young guy down the road with 3,000 cows and $6,000,000 of debt make it?”  After I ask them to clarify how they know that he has $6,000,000 of debt, I usually explain that the answer lies within the realm of productivity per unit or efficiency.  Another way to explain it is to look at their costs per hundredweight (cwt.) as measured by the leading accounting firms in our industry. The dairy industry is a volume business, marked by the need for efficient conversion of assets into bottom line profits.  Whether we like it or not, producers are “Price Takers” not “Price Makers.”  Dairymen ship their product to their cooperative or other processing company without knowing what they will get for their milk.  Unlike a “Price Maker,” such as an auto dealer who might be able to hold his inventory until he gets the price that he wants from a buyer, a dairyman sells a highly perishable product and thus needs to ship it for processing as soon as possible.  Unless he has the ability to process it into a storable form, such as cheese, and then sell it later, he must take what the market offers him on any given day.  That makes him a “Price Taker.” Thus, a dairy operation has two primary ways to influence its profit levels, either by increasing its volume of milk sold or by lowering its costs of production.  The following equation is one that I like to use to explain dairy profitability: Profit = ((Revenue/cwt. – Variable Costs/cwt.) X Number of cwt.) – Fixed Costs

  • Primarily the volume of milk sold per cow determines revenue.
  • Variable Costs include expenses that vary with the number of cows milked such as feed, some labor, supplies, repairs & maintenance, veterinary & breeding costs.
  • Fixed Costs include rent, debt repayment, most insurance, and professional fees.

What’s the message?  Spread your fixed costs (and some of your variable costs) over a larger number of hundredweights or cows and watch your profits increase. Perhaps a numerical example would help:                         >> Year 1 <<                                    >> Year 2 <<                                     600 Cows        3,000 Cows           600 Cows     3,000 Cows Milk Revenue/cwt.      $14.00             $14.00                         $11.50             $11.50 Less: Variable Costs   <10.75>           <10.05>                       <10.75>           <10.05> Less: Fixed Costs          <1.25>             <1.15>                         <1.25>             <1.15> Net Income/cwt.         $  2.00             $  2.80                         $ <.50>            $  0.30 X  200 cwt./cow         X  200             X  200                         X  200             X  200 X  Number of cows    X  600             X 3000                        X  600             X 3000 Net Income                 $240,000         $1,680,000              $(60,000)      $180,000 As you can see in the previous example, the larger operation does a fairly good job of spreading their fixed costs as well as reducing some variable costs per hundredweight.  Thus, it is apparent why the larger operation has the ability to service substantially more debt in a given time period.  Of course, in our current industry environment, dairies of all sizes will find it more difficult to make ends meet.  Regardless of herd size, all producers should keep a close watch on their costs per hundredweight.  These should be monitored on a regular basis both internally and via the accounting numbers from your CPA. To summarize, however, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch said it best when he advised:

  1. “Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it were.” In essence, do the right things in your management system for the right reasons, but don’t waste time on those tasks over which you have no control.
  2. “Change before you have to.” This will assist you to stay ahead of the curve of change and position you to compete at a higher level. No doubt about it – You’ll be glad you did!

The realization is now – Written by Marketing Expert Seth Godin

*** I wanted to share a copy of Seth’s article with you, simply because I believe it has a fantastic message, one that could serve as a sound directive to get our country back on track in so many ways. I hope you enjoy his thoughts, which fit almost every industry: “New polling out this week shows that Americans are frustrated with the world and pessimistic about the future. They’re losing patience with the economy, with their prospects, with their leaders (of both parties). What’s actually happening is this: we’re realizing that the industrial revolution is fading. The 80 year long run that brought ever-increasing productivity (and along with it, well-paying jobs for an ever-expanding middle class) is ending. It’s one thing to read about the changes the internet brought, it’s another to experience them. People who thought they had a valuable skill or degree have discovered that being an anonymous middleman doesn’t guarantee job security. Individuals who were trained to comply and follow instructions have discovered that the deal is over… and it isn’t their fault, because they’ve always done what they were told. This isn’t fair of course. It’s not fair to train for years, to pay your dues, to invest in a house or a career and then suddenly see it fade. For a while, politicians and organizations promised that things would get back to normal. Those promises aren’t enough, though, and it’s clear to many that this might be the new normal. In fact, it is the new normal. I regularly hear from people who say, “enough with this conceptual stuff, tell me how to get my factory moving, my day job replaced, my consistent paycheck restored…” There’s an idea that somehow, if we just do things with more effort or skill, we can go back to the Brady Bunch and mass markets and mediocre products that pay off for years. It’s not an idea, though, it’s a myth. Some people insist that if we focus on “business fundamentals” and get “back to basics,” all will return. Not so. The promise that you can get paid really well to do precisely what your boss instructs you to do is now a dream, no longer a reality. It takes a long time for a generation to come around to significant revolutionary change. The newspaper business, the steel business, law firms, the car business, the record business, even computers… one by one, our industries are being turned upside down, and so quickly that it requires us to change faster than we’d like. It’s unpleasant, it’s not fair, but it’s all we’ve got. The sooner we realize that the world has changed, the sooner we can accept it and make something of what we’ve got. Whining isn’t a scalable solution.” I urge you to join me in making the changes we need to in order to succeed and prosper!

Developing a Future Course for Your Business

You’ve probably heard about the Harvard Business School study regarding the value of having clearly defined goals and a written plan designed to achieve them. 3% of the study’s respondents had a “written, specific plan” for what they wanted to achieve. 10% of them had a “general set of goals” with no definite plan. 60% of those surveyed had only “survival goals” that would allow them to live day to day. The final 27% had “no goals”. When the study was completed 20 years later, people in the 3% group with definite written goals had out produced the 10% group by over ten times. In fact, this 3% group had amassed greater wealth in those 20 years than the entire other 97% of those surveyed! Am I advocating that you should simply do this planning to obtain more money? No. Maybe your goal is to give more money to charity. Whatever it is, write it down. A written plan will provide you with a tool against which you can compare your actual results! Please allow me to outline several other good reasons to consider developing a written strategic plan for your dairy business. First, the process of developing your plan forces you to focus on what you and your team want for your business. I am confident that you will be much more pleased with the results you obtain if they are in line with what you desire: Think it through and write it down. Second, a written plan will help to keep you on track because it will serve as a guide for you to purchase everything you need to meet your business objectives and it can keep you from buying anything you don’t need to succeed. This is important in the area of large capital expenditures. Invest only in the expenditures you truly need. Let someone else purchase items not necessary to you meeting your goals. Having a written plan doesn’t mean you can never deviate form it. Like any good system of guidance, it is intended to keep you on track. It must also be flexible, allowing you to adjust to rapidly changing business environments, milk markets, or feed prices. This is particularly true as we enjoy ever improving technology, which gives us more accurate, up to date information, equipping us to make better decisions. One final reason to include a written plan in your quest to reach the objectives you’ve set for your dairy business is that you are busy. You need a plan to stay on track. Your written plan will provide you with the guidance system you need to ask, “How will this impact us getting closer to our goals?”  Being prepared to answer a question like this one will allow you to save time, save money, and avoid headaches!

“No Excuses!”

Previously, I have used the following quote from General Eric Shinseki of the U.S. Army to make an important point: 

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”                                             

We are in a constantly changing industry environment where decisions we made five years ago are not necessarily as effective as they previously were. It is time for each of us to take back the reins of the decision making process and adopt a more proactive approach moving forward. Management consultant Peter Drucker stated that, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

Yes, you’re saying, but how can I do that, given the dairy industry’s severe downturn the past five years, and “under the present circumstances?” I’ll tell you how – Get out from under those circumstances. Change your thinking. Alter your approach. It has been said that if you keep on doing what you have been doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve been getting… I contend that is just simply not true. In some cases, it can cause you to go backward! So, what do we need to do?

Embrace change as you encounter it. Of course, we all like the familiarity of our normal day-to-day processes. At times, I am guilty of this, too. However, when things are changing as rapidly as they are in the dairy industry today, we run the risk of getting “run over” if we simply stand still. Yet, you are thinking that you just finished restructuring your bank debt and are getting most of your Vendor Payables caught up (hopefully). Can’t you stop and take a break? Do so at your own risk. Here is a list of items that I’d like you to think about: 

1.)    Where do you really want to be in five years? In ten years? How can you get there? What will it take to succeed in reaching those goals?

2.)    Who will take over your business when you are gone? Do you have a plan already in place? If not, why not develop one? Several years ago, I witnessed a sad but true situation where one person controlled all aspects of his business operation and, frankly, made all of the decisions. One day, at the ripe old age of 42, this person was killed in an unfortunate auto accident. The result was absolute chaos around his business. No one else was trained to make effective decisions, and there was no succession plan in place. It was a financial nightmare for his family. It all could have been avoided with a minimal amount of planning.

3.)    Have you implemented a “Milk Marketing Plan” yet? Are you using Put Options to establish a floor under your milk price? Likewise, are you working closely with your Nutritionist and others to lock in the best prices on feed at all times, not just now because they have been so high? Do you truly know your Break-even Points on milk price and feed cost? You need to know these!

4.)    As outlined above, have a plan on everything you do. Can you be assured of always making the correct decisions? Of course not. However, your odds of success will be greatly improved if you think about and develop your own plan for your business, particularly in comparison to letting the industry or others decide for you.

Former Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis, upon being hired to lead a team that had win-loss records of 5-7 and 6-6 the prior two seasons and hearing the players complain about the school’s administration, replied as follows:

“Quit blaming everyone but yourselves for the reason there was a coaching change. There was a coaching change because you’re 6-6 and last year you were 5-7. There was a coaching change because you guys didn’t live up to the expectations around Notre Dame… Why don’t you just look in the mirror? Maybe the reason why you were 5-7 and 6-6 is that you’ve played crummy. Just maybe.”

“He certainly got their full attention. He claimed that you could have heard a pin drop. His message had come through loud and clear: ‘No excuses!’”

                        Charlie Weis in his book No Excuses

Let’s follow Charlie’s advice and realize that, as an industry and as individual participants, we have not always played by the best laid game plan. Reset your course today and join me in accepting “No excuses!”

What is Your Level of Commitment?

Recently, I have held discussions with two different producers about their level of commitment. One suggested that he had to be insane to tolerate the volatility of the dairy industry with its highs and lows in milk prices and feed costs the past five years. Right now, he is faced with having to buy springers each month… On the other hand, the second dairyman said he could not imagine doing anything else but being a dairy producer. What is the difference between their two outlooks? I believe that the primary difference revolves around their level of commitment.

In their book Great by Choice – Uncertainty, Chaos and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All, authors Jim Collins (who also wrote Built to Last and Good to Great) and Morten T. Hansen (author of Collaboration) talk a great deal about the roles of Resilience, Skills, Commitment to Preparation & Luck, and just how these factors can all play a role in the success or failure of your business. They tell the story of Malcolm Daly, a mountain climber who survived a horrible fall and his ensuing rescue from the side of Thunder Mountain in Alaska, just a few feet below its summit. “Malcolm Daly had been lucky enough to survive the fall, but he also had to be strong, skilled and resilient before the 44 hours of peril after his two-hundred-foot fall.”

They go on to say that “Luck favors the persistent, but you can only persist if you survive.” So, how do we go about surviving and to an even greater degree, thriving?

1.)    Start with a plan. Knowing what you want to accomplish, your target date and what steps you will take to get there are necessary ingredients for reaching your objectives. In an interview on DairyLine Radio, I previously stated that the future belongs to those who have a clearly defined plan. Whether you are driving your pickup truck, choosing a spouse or holding a discussion with your banker about expanding your business, you will always be better off with a plan.

2.)    Develop some resilience. No one ever said it would be easy to reach your goals in business and in life. However, that doesn’t provide us with a license to walk away, just because it may tough. When the going gets tough, the tough get going!

3.)    Obtain the skills you need to reach your objectives. It may cost some money, but it is far less expensive than facing a bankruptcy. I have been consulting for sixteen years and served as a commercial loan officer for seven years before that, but I still don’t know everything I need to know to succeed. I use a business coach, too.

4.)    Be prepared. As Jim Collins and Morten Hansen state in their book, “There’s an adage that says, ‘Better to be lucky than good.’ And it’s perhaps true – for those who seek to be only good, not much better than average, creating nothing exceptional. But our research brings us to an entirely opposite conclusion for those who aspire to more: it’s far better to be great than lucky.”

5.)    Finally, work hard to stay on course with your plan and always know where you are with respect to that plan. There is no alternative, other than to be like the warehouse worker, who, when asked how long he had worked at his current job, replied, “Ever since they threatened to fire me…” Staying on course with your plan will lend itself to far superior results.

To summarize, what’s your level of commitment? When challenges arise, will you be prepared? If having a plan to succeed in your business ever became a crime, would you be “guilty as charged?” If I can help you as you think about developing a bigger and better future, please let me know. Meanwhile, take a minute to go our home page and visit our free Success Tips section. You may find just what you are looking for!

“How can I get past this challenge?”

Do you ever find yourself having difficulty being optimistic? I think we all do at times. Of course, not when we are getting in excess of $20 per cwt for our milk, but how about when milk prices are far less positive, as they were from 2009-2012? You might want to save this article for those times… What is the real problem with this? Don’t you have a right to be pessimistic during those times? 

Author Steve Chandler, in his book entitled 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself, states: “Motivation comes from thought. Every act we take is preceded by a thought that inspires that act. And when we quit thinking, we lose the motivation to act. We eventually slip into pessimism, and the pessimism leads to even less thinking.” The real problem lies with our inability to snap out of this mode and thus focus on the challenge we are facing.

Chandler gives an excellent example that we all can probably relate to. A pessimist decided to clean his garage one Saturday morning. However, when he looked into the garage, he was immediately overwhelmed and cried, “’No one could clean this garage in one day!’ At that point the pessimist slams the garage door shut and goes back inside to do something else.” For a pessimist, it is either perfection or nothing.

The optimist, however, after looking at his garage, continues his thinking. “’Okay, so I can’t clean the whole garage,’ he says. ‘What could I do that would make a difference?’ He looks for awhile, and thinks things over. Finally, it occurs to him that he could break the garage down into four sections and do just one section today.” Over a period of four weeks he will get the entire task completed. Sounds like a solid plan!

Don’t we all have a neighbor for whom everything always seems to go right? Could it be his thinking process? Consider one decision that you are presently being faced with. Be sure to remind yourself that there is, indeed, an answer to your challenges. Perhaps you are concerned about finding the financing you need to expand your business. Can you break it down into sections, just like cleaning the garage? Here is an example for you.

1.)    Establish an outline of your particular business plans and what you want to do.

2.)    What do you think you will need in terms of financing for capital expenditures and/or working capital for your operational needs?

3.)    Does this project have a positive payback in your specific operation or is it just “what everyone’s doing?” Run some cash flow projections on the idea. Just as three times milking does not work at every dairy, the same may be true for the idea you are considering.

4.)    Are you prepared to go to one or more banks and present your ideas? Have you fully outlined all aspects of your plan and made certain that your financial reports are up to date? If not, talk to your accountant about getting updated accrual financial statements for your business. Lenders love to see them because it provides them with a much clearer picture of what is actually taking place in your business. You should want these, too, to make sure your costs are in line with the rest of the industry.

These four steps should serve as a guideline of how to approach your business hurdles, whatever they are. Remember, when you face a business challenge, stay optimistic so you remain open to all possibilities. The primary reason to remain optimistic, as I said earlier, is that there is an answer. You just haven’t discovered it yet. Author Steve Chandler adds the following advice:

“If you catch yourself brooding, worrying and thinking pessimistically about an issue, the first step is to recognize your thoughts as being pessimistic. Not wrong or untrue – just pessimistic. And if you are going to get the most out of your bio-computer (the brain), you must acknowledge that pessimistic thoughts are less effective… If you really want to open your life and motivate yourself to succeed, become an optimistic thinker.”

The next time you are faced with an important decision within your business, why not give this process a try?

Should You Be Committed?

Not long ago, I was approached by a Client who said he wanted to own more land. With his 3,000 cow herd, we agreed that it made a lot of sense. He could grow more of his own feed and probably decrease his overall feed costs.

“What about the down payment?” I asked. He had no excess equity in his land base to borrow against, so I explained that he would need 30-35% of his purchase price as a down payment. His lender would then provide the rest of the money. Buying 100 acres at $10,000/acre would cost $1,000,000. This would require $300,000 to $350,000 for the down payment. “Where am I going to get that?” he asked.

Actually, I was glad he asked. I suggested that he start putting all odd amounts of income, e.g. USDA funds, bull calf money and at least part of his cull cow money into a separate savings account. My intent was not to draw that fabulous 0.01% interest we currently receive on any savings, but rather it was designed to segregate these funds from his checking account, with the sole intent of protecting the money from being spent. I call it AGS – Acute Goal Savings.

This went fine for about two months, after which I asked how much had been put away. “Well, I just recently quit doing that!” Of course, I asked why… His reply was, “It’s just too much of a hassle. Besides, the bull calf money is my ‘fun money.’” Wow, I thought, this should represent worlds of fun in 2014!

I tried to rationalize with him, “Well, if you get the additional 100 acres, won’t your profits go up and provide you with even more ‘Fun Money’?” His reply: “Nah. That’s crazy.” It made me wonder if I should be “committed” for suggesting such crazy things…

Now, contrast that with another Client who milked 600 cows. I suggested the same AGS concept to these two brothers. They started it two months later and, after just 18 months, now have $50,000 in their AGS account. Within the next several months, they will have enough saved for the down payment on their goal of building a new fresh cow & maternity barn! This should reduce their over-crowding, boost their fresh cow management, and increase their herd’s milk production.

What was the primary difference in these two examples? In total dollars, the 3,000 cow herd owner’s dream was considerably bigger, but he lacked the “commitment” to the objective. In contrast, the 600 cow herd owners needed fewer dollars. However, the real difference was in their level of commitment, that necessary ingredient needed to convert their dream or goal into reality!

It takes both a Goal and a Burning Desire, also known as commitment, to reach your goal. With that in mind, I will leave you with a simple question: “Should you be committed?”

What Would Croesus Actually Do?

Several years ago, I wrote an article entitled “What would Croesus do?” and received extensive feedback regarding that text. The story of Croesus begins with the following characteristics. First, he is a King and is surrounded by some brilliant people. Additionally, while his kingdom has occasional problems, he has unlimited funds to solve them, so, as you can imagine, Croesus and his court are always capable of finding solutions. They have no financial limitations to overcome. 

In their book Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small, authors Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres tell the story of Croesus and his ability to successfully overcome any problem. However, they go one step further by answering the question about what you can do to solve challenges when you do not have unlimited funds, like most of us.

Their process, while simple, is two fold. First, come up with the solution to a problem as if you had unlimited funds, and write it down. Next, since we do not have unlimited funds, think of less costly solutions to this same issue. Now, that is the challenging part, but Nalebuff and Ayres also point out that after you have followed the King Croesus approach, as if you had unlimited monetary resources, you are definitely better equipped to come up with a less expensive solution. In fact, it has been their experience that you may even discover a solution to another challenge you are facing simultaneously.

Here is an example of this happening with a prospect recently. They had a problem. Their “Supplies” cost had been going through the roof, but they couldn’t figure out why. After reviewing their numbers more closely, we discovered that they were using a new product that insured cleaner teat ends and better overall sanitation in the milk barn. This new product had, in fact, improved udder health and had lowered their Somatic Cell Count to 125,000, but they were wondering if they could afford to continue its use…

It was supposed to be a replacement for another previously used product. Yet, they had neglected to discontinue their prior product. Was the new one effective? Absolutely! Was it free? No. In fact, while it clearly worked, it was quite expensive. Fortunately, using it was less expensive than utilizing both it and the item that it was supposed to replace. Thus, as you can imagine, we had found the Supplies cost problem, because using both was like wearing a belt and suspenders. While either of these can be effective alone, you will not need both to keep your pants up.

Recall that the Why Not? authors had suggested we can often find an unexpected solution to another challenge when we use their process. In the case of the producer above, we also learned that several feed additives should have been eliminated after they started a vastly improved job of covering their silages and harvesting their crops at the most optimal time. Guess what? Some of these items, while they were expected to be discontinued, had in fact still been purchased. This is a good example of finding another solution while you are focusing on an entirely different problem.

Both problems were solved by studying their numbers very closely, and, in comparison to the budget and the goals for their operation, determining what they actually had to spend. You can use QuickBooks, Excel or some other program, but, most important, make sure you review all of your costs, closely and often. While we are in good times now, that could change. Besides, your objective should always be to maximize your bottom line profits, not make sure that you spend it all. I know most producers don’t like to pay tax, but please remember that the tax man doesn’t take it all in taxes, just a portion.

Finally, I know that everyone wants to boost their efficiencies, but don’t forget to drop the prior “solutions.” Just use your best judgment, and remember that none of us are King Croesus with unlimited funds. Study your marginal costs and returns. I think you’ll be glad you did.