Marketers keep track of all kinds of things, looking for ways to sell us more stuff. One statistic I heard is that the average person spends about $1,000 per year on the outside of their head. This includes shaving supplies, facials, visits to the barber and headwear.
But here is the kicker: a lot of people spend little or nothing on the inside of their heads, in the form of taking in new knowledge. For example, Hill Strategies Research of Hamilton, Ont., did a survey in 2001 and found that 52 percent of Canadian households spent no money on books. But not everybody is a book type. For some, a classroom or hands-on training are more suitable.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
Another survey, this one done by Statistics Canada, found 28 percent of adult Canadians (not including full-time students) participated in some kind of adult education or training program in 1997, the most recent year for which I could find data. But those that do don’t spend more than $150 on average for either books or adult education courses.
During the 1990s, when I was marketing a 10-day program in holistic management, only about one percent of the people I contacted even came to a free seminar to find out what the course was about. I would pick a town where I wanted to run a course, and mail a four-page brochure to all the farms within 40 kilometres of the town, which was on average 2,000 farms, inviting them to come to a free afternoon seminar to learn how to make more profit and have more leisure time. Usually about 20 farmers would show up. At the end of the seminar, most of them would sign up for the course.
My informal market research showed that having too little money and too little time were the biggest problems farm and ranch families faced. My brochure said I could help solve those problems and there was no charge for the seminar. So what happened to the farmers who got the brochure and didn’t come? Some couldn’t come because they were working, but even if it was half of them, where was the other half?
I am not saying all these farmers should have come to my course, but it’s good to do something to increase one’s knowledge. Home-study courses, workshops and internet-based programs are offered every year, on a wide variety of farm topics.
Everett Rogers was a sociologist who studied the way new ideas are adopted. In his book Diffusion of Innovations, published in 1962, he described how different people adopted new ideas.
He categorized people into five types: innovators (2.5 percent,) early adopters (13.5 percent,)early majority (34 percent,) late majority (34 percent) and laggards (16 percent).
Essentially, the innovators were always looking for the latest ideas or technology. They were pioneers: open-minded and willing to take some risks as they tried new things. The people who took my holistic management training were innovators.
Rogers found that of the remaining farmers, only the early adopters could relate to the innovators. They were also willing to learn something new, but they weren’t pioneers. They wanted the bugs to be worked out and the whole system to be in place before they tried the new idea.
The remainder followed along later, when the idea was no longer new nor particularly profitable.
Now here is the interesting thing. Statistics show that about 16 percent of farmers earn an upper class income, no matter what grain and livestock are priced at. Almost precisely the same percentage (15 percent) of farmers are either innovators or early adapters, who spend a significant amount of time and money improving the insides of their heads.
Which side are you spending the most money on?
Edmonton-based Noel McNaughton is a sponsored speaker with the Canadian Farm Business Management Council. He can be reached at 780-432-5492, e-mail: farm@midlife-men.com or visit www.midlife-men.com.
