In 2007, Farm Equipment was still competing in a 3-book market. We were No. 1 in market share, and then there was NAEDA’s monthly Equipment Dealer and then Implement & Tractor (I&T). Farm Equipment was well ahead in every measurable criterion — advertising market share, editorial pages, ad pages and revenue. Things were proceeding nicely, and I wouldn’t say we were complacent but perhaps a shakeup was needed.

It came in an unexpected phone call in 2007 from Charlene Finck, the editor of Farm Journal who has since risen to president of the media giant. "I want you to hear this from us before it's out on the street,” she said. “We've just acquired I&T.” It was a brief call and classy on her part. But it also had daunting implications for us as we sensed she was alerting us that I&T would, for the first time in decades, have deep pockets and staff behind it again.

Our 20-person company, which had the space mostly to itself, would now be competing with one of the world’s largest and most influential ag publishers.

I got off the phone and walked into my dad's office to share the news, and he said, "There's going to be some big pockets against that title." I said, “That's my reaction exactly.” We quickly called an offsite meeting for 2 days later. 

I rented a conference room at a nearby hotel on a Thursday night and brought dinner and drinks in for our small group of 6. It included Jim Rank, Dave Kanicki, Frank Lessiter, Don Henning (strategic planner), our VP of sales and me.

Henning showed up with his trademark flipboard and markers, and we revisited the SWOT analysis of I&T and started running down all the opportunities in front of us, with the intent to choose our best horse that very night. 

We arrived at the introduction of an 8th edition in our schedule, which would be called the SOURCEBOOK, a comprehensive guide to every manufacturer, product and brand name. The once impressive directories in the industry had either been dropped or were no longer relevant because they were so long out of date. We sensed a void that could intersect the needs of both our subscribers and advertisers. After all, dealers were asking us to publish a guide they could keep at the parts counter to quickly reference which brands ended up with which manufacturers.

The new SOURCEBOOK announcement went in the 2008 media kit the following day, which was days from being sent to the printer. That first edition would also include a 19-page special report on dealer management business systems, focusing on another timely topic.

We hired out the product categorizing work to Charlie Glass and created a new revenue stream that would have 13,000 listings across 800 product categories. We also made it very affordable to the smaller manufacturers to have a presence with what we dubbed “Call Ads'' placed directly into the product categories or brand name directories.

It required a massive data collection effort, but we put a flag in the ground and got it done. We had a wildly successful launch (nearly matching the total annual revenue that Farm Equipment saw during its first year with Lessiter Media) that also put us closer to those smaller manufacturers with specialized products. We produced the SOURCEBOOK for 13 years before replacing it with another special issue, the annual SHORTLINE EDITION.

The exercise showed quick-action and demonstrated the stoutness of our crew, along with the realization of how competition sharpens us and makes us better. And we owed it to ourselves, our readers, the staff and all the people supporting us to give it our absolute best shot. 

In the end, things came full circle, and we outlasted the biggest media company in the business. Farm Journal acquired Machinery Pete to put them into the data world and concluded their niche was the large farmer audience and not in the dealer and manufacturer space. We acquired I&T in 2015, and while we kept the brand alive via our Trending Now department, we rolled its circulation into Farm Equipment. A few years later, while meeting with Neil Dahlstrom at the John Deere Archives in East Moline, Ill., we discovered that the often-cited Farm Implement News was part of the I&T legacy brand and thus that content was now our ownership, as well.

“Outlasting Farm Journal is a testament to how not just Farm Equipment but Lessiter Media approaches everything we do,” says Schmidt. “That is, we're going to zero in on our niche and become proficient in where we put our focus. We don't try to be everything to everyone.”