I have said the word never a lot in my life. Growing up, Grandpa would say “Never is a very long time,” and I would shrug it off. Back then, and now, when I say never, I mean it. I simply do not see any path forward. I will not find value in what I have written off, nor will find use for it ever again. And the older I get, the shorter my path to “never” becomes. 

Three years ago, I had written off Iron Solutions. I decided that I would never do business with Iron Solution more than I had to. This was back under a previous administration and ownership, but the company was still the same ol’ Iron Solutions. I served as an Iron Solutions Dealer Council member for almost 7 years. I sat through countless meetings where Iron Solutions ownership asked for our feedback. The overwhelming majority of council members all pointed out the same shortcomings and areas that needed addressing. And while our opinions were solicited, they were not listened to. Instead, the previous administration and ownership demonstrated a complete lack of willingness to change or improve the Guide. All this drove a lot of us away and did nothing to fix what was broken within the Guide.  

At the time, most of the used equipment managers I worked with and spoke with regularly all felt the Guide was off, not by a few percentage points but by 15-20%. The only Iron Solutions data I could find that everyone agreed was 100% was the serial number year search and trade value premium (TVP), only because most lending institutions required TVP to set lease residual values and floorplan values for floor planning used trade-ins. The IronGuide needed to be higher on the trusted advisor scale. 

In 2021, Iron Solution was a sponsor at the Moving Iron Summit. Randall Reilly had recently acquired them. At the time, I wondered why Randall Reilly had purchased Iron Solutions and what upside they saw. Iron Solutions had a speaking slot where they had a concise presentation and then asked the audience for feedback, and they got what they asked for. The crowd was filled with questions and harsh critiques, but the speakers and other members of the Iron Solutions Team fielded the questions the best they could. The room was tense when the session ended, and I was confident it would be the last time Iron Solutions would be part of the Moving Iron Summit. Moreover, I was OK with the possibility of not working with Iron Solutions in the future.  

My phone rang in late 2022, and Jon Wommack asked if there was room left for vendors to speak at the Moving Iron Summit. I laughed and said, “Sure, Jon, I can find a place for you.” We agreed on terms and had them signed up for the Summit. When the day came for Jon and his team to speak, I was sure it would go down a similar path as the previous year. I was wrong! Systematically, Jon and his team took each of the issues raised from the prior year and explained the plan to rectify the problem and other matters Jon had gleaned through conversations he conducted throughout the year.

Over the past 3 years, I've witnessed a remarkable transformation at Iron Solutions. It's no longer the company I had written off. It's now a company that actively listens to its customers, striving to implement changes as quickly as possible. The IronGuide values, once a source of frustration and even some jokes, have gradually aligned with the market. What used to be a significant 15-25% discrepancy is now a very manageable 2-3% variance from my own equipment evaluations. 

A good example is an 8R 370 I recently evaluated. This machine was only a year old, had only 500 hours, and was nicely equipped. I valued the machine through the IronGuides Platform and didn’t change any parameters. I calculated the machine with a book value of $340,000, and the IronGuide returned their value at $336,000. The same exercise would have yielded a book value of $370,000 or higher in years past. I valued 3 other like machines, a Case IH Magnum and Fendt 1050, and found they were also under my expected value. 

A good friend and I talked a few days ago, and Iron Solutions came up in our conversations. He said, “I am not sure what they are doing over there, but the IronGuide Values are so close to the market that I had to ensure I was using the same product.”

Iron Solutions has come a long way from what it was 3 years ago. IronGuide Values are such an integral part of the equipment industry in so many ways, so those values must be as accurate as possible, not just for the TVP or Floor Plan Values but also for evaluating and forecasting what is happening in the market. 

If you are reading this and are on the fence or had written Iron Solutions off like did, I encourage you to call and have Jon Wommack and his team give you a demo or answer your questions. Don’t follow my path — you might have to write a column in an industry magazine eating your own words.