This series underscores the unpredictable nature of an entrepreneurial lifestyle.  Entrepreneurship for Jim Conn started at age 8, selling frogs and angleworms to Lunds Bait Shop in Alexandria. A cherished resort area in Minnesota. While Jim discovered how to catch bait for local fishermen and help resort owners tackle mosquitoes, his dad, Clair Conn, decided to form a business with his friend, Walter Wood, after WW II (1947). They built out two territories selling grain handling machinery and grain storage products in MN and North Dakota. Walter fostered a territory in Redwood Falls, and Clair forged a northern territory in the Fargo/Moorhead area.  In the photo, Jim and his 1st plane for Wood & Conn Co. accompanied by his three children: Laurie, Brian, and Jackie.

Walt died suddenly of a heart attack three years into building Wood & Conn Corporation. Clair asked Walt’s son, Dave Wood, to come back from the Navy to run its Redwood Falls side. Clair Conn and Dave Wood ran the business until Clair retired in 1973. Entering the family business, another impressive and self-described cocky sales guy was Jim Conn.

The two sons, Dave and Jim, capitalized on having supplies and grain handling equipment farmers needed especially sugar beet equipment. BER-VAC Cultivators were popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, so Dave and Jim leveraged the business to get as many BER-VAC Cultivators in stock as possible. That machine prepares seedbed for sugar beets. Annual sales went from $300,000 to $4M over ten years in each branch or $8M combined with 40 employees.

                                                                    1980s BER-VAC Cultivator

Today’s Beet Cultivation Set-up.  

Then, beet farmer crops froze, gas prices surged, and the farm crisis hit in the mid-1980s, “completely altering the fabric of rural America,” as reported on Iowa PBS. “American farmers confronted an economic crisis more severe than any since the Great Depression. Agricultural communities throughout the Midwest and across the nation were devastated. Families were forced from the land, lenders collapsed, and businesses on rural main streets closed—many to never reopen. It was a decade of turmoil and activism.” 

I remember this rough time as a high schooler on our dairy farm in Parkers Prairie, MN. We were fortunate; our family managed to survive. Farmers and anyone doing business with farmers was affected, including Wood & Conn Corporation. In stark terms of the devastation, Jim talks and ascribes his subsequent boost in business acumen and leadership development to these two years.

Dave Wood was utterly devastated, needing time to address his mental health. Jim stepped up and quickly learned how to take the business through Chapter 11-reorganization, stabilize the business, and set-up a 10-year plan. Solid business relationships were a big part of their comeback. You will find out how Dave returns and how Jim deals with the shame and emotional exhaustion at the end of the turbulent two-year period.

Dave would run the Redwood Falls branch and mentor Tim Gilk until he became the third-generation Wood & Conn Corporation owner in 2006. Tim is the first non-family business owner. Dave Wood passed away on April 17, 2020.

Life after Bankruptcy.

• Shame. Self-blame.
• Falling behind on his home mortgage.
• The pressure to provide.
• An opportunity to begin anew breathes life into the desperation.
• A 10-year delay in being able to look back and process what happened.

He may be down, but he was far from being out. Listen in as Jim stages a remarkable comeback applying new marketplace insight into a technical business where he hits a home run with Anita by his side.

Small Town Opportunities and an Amazing Comeback.

• This time to Mark Johnson, another well-written letter gets Jim a job with Rice Lake Weighing Systems, Inc. in Rice Lake, WI. 
• Over ten years as Vice President of Sales and Distribution, Jim helped build the business from an $8M business to $40M in annual sales with 300 employees and eight salespeople. Learn how he did it. The company is still thriving today.
• Jim was the company pilot.
• In 1985, Jim raised over $500,000 to fly both polls in 11 days with a fellow pilot out of Nigeria. The Polar Flite from the North Pole to the South Pole earned them 16-certified world records.
• While Jim generated the money, Anita raised their three children: Laurie, Brian, and Jackie. The strain of imbalance takes its toll on the family.
• Another change was a-coming. Jim starts our conversation by saying there were two stabilizing forces throughout his life, outside of his family: flying and his longtime friendship with Dick Harper, a clinical psychologist. In our third conversation, we discuss emotional stamina and agility, a missing link to business acumen. DOWNLOAD

Acquiring a business acumen means:

1. Seeing the big picture within your industry and exercising sound business judgment without losing sight of the details producing measurable results.
2. Developing a keen awareness of how business works. Weighing the financial risks with the business opportunities. An internal model of how you can see the business working and an outward understanding of the marketplace.
3. Becoming financially astute in your business. Learning how the business generates money, the business model, and the connection between mission, core values, key stakeholders, value chain, customers, and fiscal responsibilities. A keen eye on creating sustainable cashflow.
4. Knowing the lifecycle of businesses and products and how to keep innovating to stimulate progress.
5. A clear understanding of how to build relationships over the longterm.
6. Staying on the narrow path to become a great company by becoming a great leader and doing the work to be a great leader during a lifetime. Jim Collins defines a great company in four areas: performance (generates enough cashflow to be self-sustaining), impact (shapes their industry through innovation or size), reputation (admired and respected), and longevity (remains healthy and self-renewing for decades). Jim writes, “while the path to building a great company is narrow, there are many ways to succumb to catastrophic decline and failure.”

 The good news is, “a company need not be perfect to be great.” Every company has warts and makes mistakes. Leaders within every company are humans. “A great company is resilient and bounces back from its difficult periods,” writes Jim Collins (Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0: Turning Your business into an Enduring Great Company, 2020). Mentors accompany those making the ascent to a higher plane of self-leadership mastery. Mentoring works!