2025 Most Valuable Dealership Delivers Cutting-Edge Tech to Farms Across U.S.

The 2025 recipient of Precision Farming Dealer’s 13th annual Most Valuable Dealership award is Ag Technology Solutions Group in Greenville, Ill. 

Dealerships of all sizes and types from across the U.S. were nominated by their customers, suppliers and employees.

Evaluated criteria included precision farming sales growth and diversity, along with how each nominee is generating revenue from hardware, software and precision service. Other elements such as employee training, performance standards, innovation, sustainability and community involvement were also considered.

Check The Specs…

Founded: 2023

Locations: 3

Employees Dedicated to Precision Farming: 13

Precision Lines Carried: Ag Leader, Bushel Plus SmartPan System, DJI, Farmwave, Greeneye, Leaftech, OPI, Precision Planting, Raven, Sabanto, SIMPAS, PTx Trimble

Total Precision Revenue: $5.3 million

Precision Service Hours Billed: 1,198

Origin Story

Ag Technology Solutions Group represents the culmination of a 20-year journey for owner and CEO Skip Klinefelter, who began using precision farming technology several years ago on his 3,100-acre farm near Nokomis, Ill. 

Klinefelter became frustrated with the lack of technical support offered by local dealers, so he became a precision dealer himself, launching Precision Seeding Technologies in 2004. The dealership eventually grew into Linco-Precision in El Paso, Ill. 

Klinefelter then purchased Morton, Ill., Precision Planting dealer Bottom Line Solutions and Ithaca, N.Y.-based Dairy One Coop’s precision business in 2022. A year later, he launched Ag Technology Solutions Group (ATSG) as the parent company of the 3 entities and a national distributor of cutting-edge precision farming technology and equipment.

“The purpose of Ag Technology Solutions Group is to provide the infrastructure to acquire companies and add them to the current portfolio,” Klinefelter says. “There are many advantages to having precision businesses operate under centralized management, accounting, insurance and other back-office systems.

Mia Emken works the phones during a busy morning at ATSG headquarters in Greenville, Ill. The marketing and social media specialist is one of several key hires for the company since 2023. Noah Newman

“I think there’s no question that consolidation will keep happening,” he adds. “There are some people interested in investing in our company now because they think that’s how it’s going to go. I don’t care if you’re a machinery dealer, a farmer or retailer, times like we’re in now — these times drive consolidation.” 

ATSG brought in an estimated $5.3 million in total precision revenue in 2023 and billed 1,198 precision technician service hours in 2024. Launching the company during a tough economic year was “a struggle,” Klinefelter admits, but he always tries to be on the “bleeding edge,” which is usually not the most profitable position. 

“It’s often not the most desired place to be because there are a lot of headaches and challenges that go with being first,” Klinefelter says. “But if you don’t take initiative, then somebody else does, and then you’re down the line. The most profitable place to be, whether it’s in farming or business, is usually second.” 

Expanding Footprint 

ATSG has 3 locations in Illinois — Greenville, Morton and El Paso — with 10 remote sales and service people covering all 48 contiguous states, and 36 full-time employees, 13 of which are dedicated to precision farming. The staff has nearly doubled in size the last 3 years with Klinefelter focusing on building a good culture. 

“We hire for passion and culture,” Klinefelter says. “We can teach sales techniques, but we can’t teach passion. They either have it or they don’t. If you aren’t passionate about your product, I don’t believe you’re going to see much success.”

The company regularly attends career fairs at local colleges and always scouts for new talent like Mia Emken, who came on board last year as a marketing/social media specialist. Her friendly face is the first one people see when they walk in the building.

Ag Technology Solutions Group showcases a drone during the 2025 Corn Congress event in Henrietta, N.Y. ATSG

Inside the Drone Department

Jason Sorensen holds down the fort in the Ag Technology Solutions Group drone department. 

“A day in the life of a drone department parts and service manager varies,” Sorensen says. “It’s everything from helping the salespeople out with different parts to getting quotes together and trying to keep everybody educated as things evolve.”

Sorensen started with Linco-Precision as an equipment and fertilizer salesperson before diving into the world of drones.

“We have our own service area here in the office where we can do drone repair and maintenance," Sorensen says. "We also keep plenty of drone parts on hand and also help customers with plumbing for their drone trailer setup.” 

Ag Technology Solutions Group currently sells DJI drones, but it sounds like they’re open to expanding the portfolio. Klinefelter took a team to Booneville, Mo., recently to check out a new EAVision drone from Agri Spray Drones. Klinefelter says drones were among the company’s hottest selling items in 2025. 

“Drones have a lot of different uses,” Sorensen says. “The farmer can take control of their application rather than having to hire it out. The drone is far less expensive than a traditional ground rig. It also shines in smaller plots with obstacles that would make it tough for a traditional aircraft to cover.” 

“She has an associate degree in marketing and she’s currently working on another degree while working for us,” Klinefelter says. “She’s been a huge help.”

If a good candidate comes along, they’ll get interviewed even if there’s no opening because Klinefelter knows the importance of having good talent in the pipeline. 

“Key employees will leave, it’s inevitable,” Klinefelter says. “We need to always be training a replacement — product cross-training existing employees when possible. We lost a key employee yesterday. We have people who can step in and keep his division running, but he just plain knows some things that other people don’t know.”

Klinefelter is a firm believer that AI (artificial intelligence) is going to be a game-changing tool in the industry, and he’s already using it (ChatGPT) in the hiring process to formulate interview questions. “There’s going to be two types of companies, those that adapt and adopt AI, and those that aren’t in business anymore in 5 years.”

Lloyd Lewis displayed the qualities Klinefelter was looking for when he was hired as general manager a few years ago. The Greenville, Ill., native worked for Doyle Equipment Manufacturing for almost 9 years before joining Klinefelter’s crew. It didn’t take long for Lewis to make an impact, helping find an office building to serve as company headquarters in Greenville.

“We found out about this building from the local Chamber of Commerce,” Lewis says. “A publicly traded national corporation — Essendant — owns this building and they’ve been incredibly good to work with. There’s about 100 cubicles here, a boardroom, training room, offices, kitchen and bathrooms. They charge us a base rent for the office space, and then we pay the utilities. It’s a good deal.” 

General manager Lloyd Lewis (l) and CEO Skip Klinefelter (r) talk shop in between phone calls and meetings with potential vendors and investors. Noah Newman

The massive building was essentially a national call center for Essendant before closing during COVID. It now serves as home base for ATSG with 10 employees occupying its offices — Lewis, Emken, office manager Meghan Austin, sales/marketing manager Sydni Scott, accounting manager Jenna Carroll, accounting specialist Anya Plog, inventory specialist Will Bennett, drone parts manager Jason Sorensen, drone technician Dylan Rensing and drone service man Tanner Sussenbach.

“The chemistry is really good throughout the entire company,” Klinefelter says. “I don’t know of any toxic people. We had some early on, but we’ve weeded them out.”

The Next Big Thing

“One interesting thing about the precision industry is it’s always evolving,” Lewis says. “A lot of stuff that helped Skip be successful is now on standard OEM equipment, so we don’t have an aftermarket market there anymore. We always have to be bringing in new products and looking at new technology or eventually we won’t have anything to sell.”

On top of selling products from household names like PTx Trimble, Ag Leader, Raven, Precision Planting and OPI Grain Management, ATSG is also bringing breakthrough tech to the market from SIMPAS, Sabanto, Greeneye, Farmwave and Leaftech Ag. Each technology has a designated “product champion” within the company to serve as the in-house go-to expert.  

“It’s our job to school people on what the capabilities and ROI of these new technologies are for their actual operations,” Klinefelter says. “Don’t try to force a new product down a farmer’s throat if there’s not a need. We’ve made the mistake over the years of thinking that something is really going to work well even though there isn’t a need for it, and we haven’t been successful with that. We try to see what the value would be to a farmer, but the challenge is we can’t test the market before we sign a contract.” 

Klinefelter goes the extra mile to spotlight the company’s newest offerings. His team is front and center at trade shows and conferences across the country, including the Farm Progress Show, FARMCON, Dealership Minds Summit, the National Strip-Tillage Conference, Precision  Farming Dealer Summit and many more. Linco-Precision and Bottom Line Solutions also host multiple clinics throughout the year, including one over the summer at Klinefelter’s Nokomis, Ill., farm, during which representatives from Augmenta, Sabanto, Farmwave, Leaftech and Greeneye showcased new products to over 100 regional farmers.  

Meetings & Metrics 

The company makes good use of the large, state-of-the-art training room inside its new headquarters building, hosting staff training events and lunches, sales meetings and vendor presentations. 

“We’ve had vendors come in here to give their spiel and train our sales groups on new products,” Klinefelter says. “It’s nice to get our entire sales team together for training and to go over company financials and improve communications.” 

The sales meetings also serve as a way for everyone to see how they stack up to their teammates. The company uses a program called NetSuite to track their progress and sales metrics.  

Klinefelter addresses the crowd during a recent ATSG field day at his Nokomis, Ill., farm. Attendees got an up-close look at new products from Farmwave, Greeneye, Leaftech Ag, Sabanto and more. Noah Newman

“It tracks how many proposals they’re making, who they’re talking to every day and how they’re doing it, whether it’s email, face-to-face or text,” Klinefelter says. “We can see how many minutes a person has spent on the phone. We can see how many emails they send. Some people might say, ‘Well, you’re looking over my shoulder like Big Brother.’ That’s true, to some degree, but the purpose is to identify what's working, what isn't and to improve companywide performance.”

Klinefelter puts up charts from NetSuite on the projector screen during the meetings to analyze why certain people are struggling and others are succeeding, without revealing their actual names publicly.

“For example, one of our salespeople had more proposals than anybody else in the company and he also had more profit than anybody else in the company,” Klinefelter says. “It comes down to net profit per salesman at the bottom and you can see who is pulling their weight and who isn’t.” 

The company has used NetSuite for a little over a year now. Klinefelter says it’s “extremely expensive,” but is proving to be a valuable tool. Office manager Meghan Austin played a pivotal role in the integration of NetSuite, spending countless hours setting it up and troubleshooting gremlins in the system.

The Bleeding Edge

Looking ahead to 2025 and beyond, Klinefelter and his team plan to continue living on the “bleeding edge,” even though it’s not always the safest place to be in the industry. “Some of us need to be on the bleeding edge because we need to be helping new vendors bring things to the market,” Klinefelter says. Working with the right vendors and crafting well-defined contracts will be key to the company’s success. 

“Make sure expectations are set up front,” Klinefelter says. “Put the conversations you have in writing. There are several things covered in negotiations that people don’t remember. If it’s in writing, then you can share your notes with the vendor when the meeting’s over.” 

As Klinefelter reflects on an eventful year and brainstorms how to grow in the months ahead, he’s reminded of a quote frequently used by his late brother, Danny, who was one of the top ag economists in the U.S.

“The job of a free-market system is to drive the average producer to break even. Basically, that means if you’re below average, you’re going out of business,” Klinefelter says. “If you’re average, you’re treading water, but you’re still going out of business eventually. If you’re above average now, you need to keep improving. The mid-range is rising due to the disappearance of those below you faster than those above you.” 

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ENTRERESOURCE.COM

Pondering Price’s Law

By Mike Lessiter, Editor/Publisher

Those of you who’ve been to our Precision Farming Dealer Summit know the power of the dealer-to-dealer roundtables and the aha-moments revealed in those settings. As the conversation during a recent roundtable turned to demand-driven staffing challenges, Skip Klinefelter lent his perspective. 

He introduced many of us to Price’s Law. As Klinefelter explained to his dealer peers, British scientist Derek Price proved that 50% of the outcome of any activity is executed by the square root of all participants. 

In other words, if you have 10 people, 3 will prove responsible for 50% of the outcome. The other 50% gets handled by the other 7 people. The size of the department or the company is irrelevant; the number of contributors doing one-half of the work boils down to that square-root number. And if considered a law of nature, it’s not something that can be fixed nor manipulated.

A few observations:

• Doing the math on Price’s Law quickly reveals and reminds you of your golden geese. Next time you’re reviewing dollar volumes, work orders and transactions, note your square root calculations and the relative share of your contributors.
• The law states that not everyone can be a high-performer. I’m reminded of a resignation letter I accepted from one who felt she couldn’t match the results of the others on the team, even though she was performing adequately in a new role. Evidently, I hadn’t understood Price’s Law at that time, or I could’ve better managed each of our expectations.
• Adding bodies isn’t the answer, say students of Price’s Law. Take a 9-person department. By Price’s Law, this means 3 are responsible for 50% of the output. So, the department would need to add 7 bodies to the payroll (to 16 in total) just to get 1 more individual to participate at a 50% output level.

I reconnected with Klinefelter ahead of a precision event he hosted at his Illinois farm in mid-February. He elaborated on how he applies Price’s Law in his dealership.

“This eye opener led us to put more emphasis on the lower performing to help them obtain higher results,” he says. “We use guidance from the top to help raise all ships to try and overcome a percentage of the law.

“In livestock production, you’ll raise your average production more by culling the bottom than trying to reproduce the top. I believe most performers in the bottom one-third are not passionate enough or follow standard operating protocols enough to succeed. They’re comfortable in not producing, not following proven protocol, not excelling. Those are the ones we need to weed. 

“I can’t teach passion, respect for proven protocol or timeliness. I can only show by example and pray for the best outcome for all our team members. We didn’t bring any of these folks into our family not expecting them to succeed.”