Before You Add More

What’s on my mind?

Test and analyze before making decisions.

I continue to have so many meaningful conversations with new and potential customers of the worm farm. The beginning of the call often sounds like this.

Customer: “I really like what you are doing and would like to buy some things from you. What do you suggest?”
Adam: “That depends. What are you trying to do? What is the goal? Have you ever had a soil test to confirm what you already have in your existing soil?”
Customer: “Nope. Haven’t had a soil test before. Not sure that’s necessary. Isn’t there something you can do without the soil test?”

I try not to get frustrated with this type of conversation. After all, this is likely an awareness issue or a communication issue on my part. It would appear I haven’t provided enough detail about what I’m trying to do.

The overall goal is a reduction in waste.

You can choose your version of “waste.”

Reducing organic matter going to the landfill.
Reducing the overapplication of fertilizers and anything else people put on their soil.
Helping people pause, breathe, and think about what they actually need rather than what they can afford, or what sounds good in the moment.

Two weeks ago, I was called to a customer’s home for a problem they had in a flower bed that was 20 years old. They wanted me to sell them “worm stuff” that would solve their problem. I suggested I come look at it and take a soil sample. The customer wasn’t interested in paying for a sample, so I offered to do it myself because I was genuinely curious.

The sample showed the highest levels of soil organic matter of any sample I’ve collected. It also had higher levels of N, P, and K than I’ve ever seen before. Then, and you might already know where this is going, it also had the highest level of salt I’ve ever seen.

I put the sample under the microscope and there was little to no living microorganisms. There were some, but a limited number of them. Overfertilized with salt-based, petroleum-derived products. The soil wasn’t cycling. It wasn’t working. Everything was there, but the plants couldn’t access it.

Imagine being locked in a fridge full of your favorite food and having a zipper holding your lips closed. You starve and suffer while looking right at everything you’d love to eat.

It’s so tempting and so hard to walk past the fertilizer aisle without buying something. You just want the best for your plants. So, you buy the bag of stuff, or the bottle of liquid whatever. The instructions tell you 1 tablespoon per 100 square feet, but you have a whole jug. Why not put a little more on? It won’t hurt, right?

And to be fair, that seems to be how a lot of us think about things. A little is good, so more must be better. I was reminded of that this morning watching a soil health video from one of my favorite creators. He was inoculating compost with microbes and poured a little, then poured more, just because. It took me right back to watching Emeril Lagasse years ago on the Food Network. He’d practically yell “GARLIC!” and the crowd would go wild. A little is good, so more must be better, right?

You are basically right. A little more won’t hurt anything, but it’s also likely that most of what you put on will wash away in the water and end up in rivers, streams, and drinking water. You drink what you spray.

You may think, “It’s just my little lawn.”

Again, you’re right. I am very guilty of this. I have a plastic jug of Miracle-Gro in my garage that’s probably five years old. I stopped using it and don’t know what to do with it.

Something like 40% of food that’s grown for human consumption ends up in the landfill. I wonder what percentage of lawn and garden products end up getting dumped out because they aren’t used, sitting in garages half-finished, or getting overapplied simply because more feels better than restraint.

I don’t know how many millions of lawns there are in the U.S., but if we all saved just 1 tablespoon of petroleum- and salt-based fertilizer, 1 million tablespoons is just under 4,000 gallons. That doesn’t sound like much until you also think about how much waste and contamination happens one “little bit more” at a time.

I’ve been selling something in one form or another since I was 12 years old, when my brothers and I sold butchered chickens we raised on the family farm. I’ve been selling ever since. As a student of the profession of sales and marketing, I feel pretty confident in my ability to guide a conversation toward the outcome I’m searching for.

Iowa Worm Farm has challenged that part of me in a good way. More and more, I find myself using those same skills to talk people out of buying things they don’t need. That may not be the fastest way to grow a business, and in some ways it probably holds the company back. But I’m committed to the mission. This company isn’t about selling people everything. It’s truly about doing the right thing, every time.

I got some great advice early in my sales career from a seasoned professional. He told me to sell everyone the way I would sell my own mom. It took me a little while to fully understand what he meant. I get it now. Sometimes mom wants to do things that aren’t in her best interest. Because she’s your mom, you have to have the tough conversation with her. Not everything she wants is right for her.

This is one of the things I’m trying to communicate through Iowa Worm Farm.

The primary goal is waste reduction.

Most people, including me, probably first think of that as food waste not going to the landfill. That matters. But the longer I do this, the more I see that waste shows up everywhere.

Wasted fertilizer.
Wasted money.
Wasted biology.
Wasted soil that already has what it needs, but isn’t functioning well.
Wasted effort from acting before understanding.

Sometimes the best solution is not adding more.

Sometimes the right move is to test first. Observe first. Understand what is already there before you buy, apply, dump, tear out, or replace.

Simple gets overlooked all the time. Especially when it’s low cost. Especially when it doesn’t come in flashy packaging. Especially when the answer is to slow down and do less.

But simple does not mean insignificant.

The longer I do this, the more I realize how much there is to learn.