Advocacy in American Agriculture

DIGITAL AG ENGINE.

LIVE VIDEO & PODCAST SERIES WITH HEIDI WRIGHT, DIRECTOR OF WRIGHT SOCIAL.

Heidi talks LIVE in the “Get Customers For Your Ag Business Using Social Media Group” with Scott Knudsen, a Texas Cowboy and Radio Host of the talk show ‘Cowboy EntrepreneurⓇ’.

Scott is not your ordinary 5th generation Texas Cowboy. He’s been struck by lightning (in the head, out his hand), played a mixed doubles tennis tournament at the LA Forum with Billy Jean and became an award-winning national sales rep for a Fortune 50 company. Most importantly, Scott is a true ambassador for American agriculture and uses his platform ‘Cowboy Entrepreneur’ to share incredible stories and life lessons. He is an American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) Professional Horseman and AQHA Ambassador, as well as a motivational speaker with a gift for inspiring others.

The LIVE 20-minute chat covers:

How he’s using social media to promote his business podcast which also airs on NBC Radio
What essential skills he’s learnt in Entrepreneurship that has helped his business to thrive
Advocacy in American Agriculture – common challenges and opportunities

Heidi Wright

Scott, how are we today?

Scott Knudsen

Doing well, how are you, Heidi?

Heidi Wright

Doing really well, thank you. Now, we’ve been chatting a little bit before the show, and I’m so excited to have you on with us today. So, Scott, you’re joining us from Texas, and you’re a fifth-generation cowboy with a business degree, which is so inspiring to me because so often, people that grow up on the land will often stick to what they know. But then more and more, we’re seeing a lot of people gravitate towards different areas when it comes to business. And I love the fact that you’ve matched the two, and you call yourself a “cowboy entrepreneur”, what does that mean?

Scott Knudsen

Oh, there’s so many industries within the Western or within the horse world, and the ranching world, you know, there’s farmers and cowboys, and Bootmakers, and camera people, there’s so many entrepreneurs, and we’re just trying to pull them all together and tell their story and hopefully inspire some people.

Heidi Wright

Fantastic. And tell me, what platforms are you using to get your message out there?

Scott Knudsen

We’re on the radio, and we have plenty of social media, which I’m not going to even pretend to act like I know more than you do. But we’re on all the major platforms. I think we’re up to 15 platforms now, from YouTube, to Spotify to Apple and Google and such.

Heidi Wright

Excellent. And you’re also I guess, the KCAA and NBC. For people that aren’t familiar around those channels here in Australia, tell us about the significance of that to be able to broadcast your story, and other people’s stories about how they’re working, living and breathing American agriculture on those sorts of networks.

Scott Knudsen

Absolutely. So, we have the podcast, the cowboy entrepreneurship- so it’s on all the platforms, well we wanted to do the radio as well. So, we’re on KCAA and NBC, like you said out in California, and there’s some people that might not know we’re on a podcast, they might even be in a city somewhere and never even touched a lamb, you know, been on land. So, we want to reach those people. We want to tell our stories, and we use social media, mainly. But that helps us as well to reach people that might not know our lifestyle.

Heidi Wright

Fantastic. That’s excellent. Well, again, absolute pleasure to have you on here. Tell me about how you started out with your entrepreneurial journey. What made you think, “right, I’m going go after that business degree now”?

Scott Knudsen

Well, you know, when I was a child, I loved business, I loved doing different things. And somehow you get rewarded with money or trade sometimes, and I love that because I would try and do something else. And really, being an entrepreneur, you’re helping solve a problem. Just like your company. There are so many people that don’t know how to use social media like you, so you fix the problem. And that’s what I loved. I loved helping people. And it just kind of grew from there.

Heidi Wright

Fantastic. And how are people in the USA empowering their farmers to tell their story?

Scott Knudsen

Some of them are reluctant to because they don’t think people would want to hear their story. But every day in a life of a farmer or rancher, a cowboy, it’s so cool. And so many people want to know what it’s like, as they’re driving to their office. So, it’s important for them to tell their story for somebody that might not ever get into the industry, but just to understand it, and two, that might come into the industry if they understand how cool it really is.

Heidi Wright

Yeah, I mean, for some of us, it can feel like Groundhog Day, right? But for someone who’s not in our environment, those everyday actions we’re taking on farm or throughout the supply chain is actually a real interest to the public. You know, it blows me away how many times I see social posts for such a simple image, right? It could be a muster in action or it might be a lamb on the ground and that image might get over 1000 shares and it’s incredible to this moment, there’s just so much interest in what we do in Australian agriculture and I if more farmers on the ground understood the significance of what one share can do to communicating to the city people and even other industry folk, I think more people would absolutely gravitate towards social media to feel comfortable to share their stories.

Scott Knudsen

Absolutely, it helps them understand it. But it also helps the farmer, the rancher, or the cowboy to take pride in what they do, and what they might think is a normal day to walk up and see a new baby horse, most people don’t get to see that. So, it’s I think it’s important to share, not an arrogant way, but just to kind of bring them on the ranch without them having to drive out there. And just like you did on your platform, you have the great video of the people that were picnicking on the lake, and you shot it from the top down. It was gorgeous. I showed it to so many people and there’s strength in that social media for sure.

Heidi Wright

Fantastic. Yeah, that was Bucklebee station- that was a special day for us because we were sharing our learnings of how we were able to go from barren landscapes and eaten out country to actually revitalizing and rebuilding that landscape. So that was pretty cool. Tell me more about the types of people you get on your show. Where are they from? What’s their purpose? Why are they excited to talk with you?

Scott Knudsen

They love telling their story. They know they come on our show ‘The Cowboy Entrepreneur Show’, and it’s not a ‘gotcha’ kind of show. We want to hear their story and they’re all top tier people, there’s Olympians and Hall of Famers and directors, actresses, but they’re all tied back to the horse world somehow and in some way. We talk about their success a little bit, but we talk about how you get up there and then if something bad happens, how you get back up there, so we get all types- a lot of fun.

Heidi Wright

That’s awesome. In terms of some of the challenges that you’ve heard when you’re interviewing some of these people, what have been some common themes around the challenges that they’ve perhaps faced and how they’ve gotten over those challenges to come out the other side?

Scott Knudsen

Oh, my goodness, that’s a great question. We’ve had people that come to America to do something, the Olympics and with zero money, and was trying to ride everything they could to get to the Olympic level to ride a horse, and just bounced around, bounce around, but he never quit. And I keep hearing that from so many of our guests, they just never quit because they have a passion. And whether it’s the director that made her first movie, they tell that story of never quitting and that’s always the biggest issue. People are telling you, they get in your ear, they start getting in your mind a little bit. You just don’t stop.

Heidi Wright

Not quitting is a big one, isn’t it? And that’s something that we try and instil in our children. It’s a growth mindset. It’s not “you can’t do it”, it’s “you can’t do it yet”. And I’ve got another one that papa used to impart on us, he’s passed away now, but he used to say, “there’s many educated geniuses in the world but nothing can take or replace, determination and persistence”.

Scott Knudsen

Smart man.

Heidi Wright

Yeah, that’s right. He used to bring us almonds and brain food to boarding school every Saturday. He was one of those guys that just cared a lot and imparted knowledge, which was awesome. So, what about you? What challenges and adversity have you faced in your life and what’s helped you overcome those challenges?

Scott Knudsen

Oh, my goodness, there’s been so many, from personal injuries, you know, just doing what we do for a living and there’s been a lot of injuries, but it’s just getting over it, you know, I look out the window, and I want to be out there. So, I’m going to do my work and get well enough to go back out there. So that was probably one of them. And the business changes every day, the industry changes and just like social media changes, it changes all the time, you know, so we’re always trying to learn more, learn the next thing and see if it applies in our business and just try and keep up to a certain extent, but really try and get ahead best we can.

Heidi Wright

Absolutely, yeah- looking forward, not looking back.

Scott Knudsen

Always, always. Say yes and look forward.

Heidi Wright

That’s it and well that’s right, when you get on a horse, I learned in the early days, you don’t get on sideways and look horizontal. You’ve got to look forward.

Scott Knudsen

Yeah, you’ll run into a tree if you don’t!

Heidi Wright

Exactly, that’s right. How has your passion become the driver to your business? Because what speaks to me here talking with you and having a chat earlier as well as you’re super passionate about life in general. But you know, everyone’s going to have a driver to why they stick in business. So, what’s your ‘why’ and how is that driving what you do?

Scott Knudsen

Yeah, you know, it definitely goes back to passion and it’s not like I’m working you know. This is work and it doesn’t feel like it, this is great, you know, and having new jobs for people giving them an opportunity. I love that and being with the animals and people and meeting new people, it’s a wonderful day. So that drives me and keeps me motivated, and learning new stuff every day helps me so much because you never get bored unless you just want to and I don’t want to.

Heidi Wright

This is so true. Scott, we didn’t discuss this, but do you do consulting coaching for people also on the ground? Do they come to your place, and you help them through? troubles that they’re having with their horses? Or what does that part look like?

Scott Knudsen

You know, we used to do that a lot. And I’m a AQHA pro horseman, so part of our job was to go and help people, I love it. But we’re traveling so much now, it’s kind of hard to have a regular schedule, but we do help people. People call us all the time on my cell phone, they can email us, and we always try and help where we can. I love working with non-for-profits, helping them try and figure out a business model to run as a profitable business. And, you know, with social media, once again, it really helps that someone can get on a horse and show me what they’re doing, and we can Facebook Live or whatever we want to do and work through it. So, there’s ways to work around it. But yeah, I love doing that.

Heidi Wright

Fantastic. So, let’s move now into social media, what channels are you finding most successful, that complements your podcast, so getting your podcast message out into the world through social?

Scott Knudsen

For the podcast, you know, there’s several. We’re finding more and more, you know, the Pandora and the Spotify, and Apple, they’re all great, and they help us out so much. YouTube helps us. But what helps us also is putting a picture of a horse, and everybody looks at that horse picture, the next post is maybe a show or something, it’s a balance, it’s a fine balance. And that also depends on the platform, or the voice who you’re going for, you know, at that certain spot. And it’s just trying to figure that out. Because we do Instagram and that’s a certain age group, we do Facebook for a certain age group, we’re going to do TikTok. So, we’re definitely focused on different areas, because if you just focus on one, we’re going to miss everybody else. And we don’t want to miss anyone, we want to make as many friends as we can. So, we try and be at all the different demographics, but do a good job being there.

Heidi Wright

Good work. I think to, it’s bringing people along for the journey. Rather than, you know, a podcast show, which is released on a regular schedule with different personalities, you’re able with social media to not only attract new audiences but re-engage those audiences that perhaps have listened to one episode, but now, you know, it’s been a bit of a gap, they haven’t listened to Episode six and seven, or 1000, or 2000, in your case. And therefore, you know, they can still follow along, and you can still reengage them through social media, and in fact, tell a whole new story in social media, not so much promoting the podcast, but you know, integrating that or celebrating the lifestyle with your listeners to be seen to be a part of their community, which genuinely you are.

Scott Knudsen

Yeah, I love it, you know, and I feel the community is so much further than the county line, you know, so to speak. It’s worldwide now. And just like speaking with you, and we’ve had guests from other countries on our show, and, you know, it’s funny, everybody’s just working hard trying to do the right thing on social media and grow their platforms. And in between the shows, like you say, we really make it, we bring them into our family into our ranch, you know, like they drove in the front gate the other night, we posted a video, we’re driving the Kawasaki mule, and we had the dog and deer ran up and there was a horse running. And we want people to feel their part of our lives so they understand the stories.

Heidi Wright

Fantastic. I really liked that mentality that you have, it’s genuine. And I think that’s the other thing with social media, if there’s any tips for people like yourselves who work on the ground, as well as work on social, it’s keeping that authenticity in your content. It’s understanding that those opportunities that come up on the ranch, they are exactly what really drives that momentum now when it comes to end users, because they don’t want to necessarily engage with the company face, they want to understand, well, what are the ethnos of these companies? Who are the people behind them, what activities are occurring that I can connect with personally, and that helps build trust, and trust is when we can start to build the relationship. And then relationships are what builds business. So, it really does come back to that authentic connection.

Scott Knudsen

I love that so much. That’s exactly what we preach, that is 100% accurate, you know, businesses relationships, and we put pictures up and we tell people we fail all the time. But that’s the only way you really learn. And it helps other people learn without making the same mistake, you know, and my first talk I ever did was at a university in Texas, it was called Texas A&M. And the students went on and said, “have you ever been hurt?” So, I answered the question, which you never do as a cowboy. You know, you keep that quiet. And the second question was, “have you ever made mistakes?” And I was like, Man, that’s a great question. So, I was just honest and told them and they just leaned in. And so now our shows, you know, I mean, if we mess up or if we’re driving through the Astrid, there’s a tree that fell down and we haven’t cleaned it up yet, we show it. You know, we’re real, and we’re honest. And I think that’s important for people to see on social media- nothing’s staged.

Heidi Wright

100%. How do you contend with any negative comments? You know, animal welfare is a big issue globally. Environmental sustainability. I mean, we could go on forever. Have you had negative commenting or animal activists on your channels? And if so, how do you manage that?

Scott Knudsen

Good question. We haven’t had a lot and the reason is, they see the way we love our animals, they see the way we take care of our place, you know, we’re very open about that, and we don’t really have any secrets, and why would we do something that’s not good for the land or for the animals, because that’s our livelihood. That’s the way I put food on my table for my wife and daughter. I want to respect the land and take care of the animals, and then, hopefully help other people learn how to do it, and I’ll learn from them. That’s the goal.

Heidi Wright

What essential skills have you learned in entrepreneurship that helped your business thrive?

Scott Knudsen

It’s okay to fail, that’s the way you learn. And I keep going back to that, but it’s just the truth. If you fail, you’re trying. And if you’re trying, you’re going to get better. And if you fail, and you learn, you’re even farther ahead. And it’s always saying yes, it’s always trying to be educated, and it’s okay to get educated your first year in the business or after a lot of years in the business. And because everything’s evolved, and the horse evolves, the cattle evolves, the weather patterns change, social media changes, and it’s great just to keep learning and be educated, that’s helped so much to have that open mindset.

Heidi Wright

Open mindset, yeah. Always learning. I mean, you can’t not continue to learn, right? Even if things didn’t change, you’re still learning new things, aren’t you? You learn new things about yourself?

Scott Knudsen

Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s the truth. Yes, absolutely.

Heidi Wright

One last question for you, Scott, and this has been so much fun to catch up with you here. We’re not live per se, but we’re having a good conversation, nonetheless. What would you tell your younger self if you were doing it all over again?

Scott Knudsen

You know, whenever I would work a horse, and as soon as social media kind of came out, you know, we were selling our horses and cattle really regional. Social media helped us go international. But at the beginning, I would have somebody else do that part of it. And I wouldn’t need to know that, I would focus on my horse, or whatever I was working on. Now, if I could go back, I would learn that even more so because now I’m trying to learn it. But it would have helped me do a better job on that horse if I would have understood what the people were seeing. And now I know and understand what they’re looking for. And then at that point, I was just trying to put on a good ride.

Heidi Wright

Yeah, that’s gold right there. So often we can have our blinkers on, and we can focus on what we want, but what we forget is what other people actually crave and what their needs are. And as you say, when it comes to entrepreneurship and business, there’s got to be a need, it’s got to be clear. And there’s got to be a way to solve it and communicate what that solution is. And there’s got to be an outcome. Because if there’s no positive outcome to that customer or audience, then you actually don’t have a business. Scott, this has been fantastic. Tell me where can people go to look you up, to find you on socials or to subscribe to your podcast?

Scott Knudsen

Awesome. Thank you so much. So, it’s ‘Cowboy Entrepreneur’ and it’s on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. YouTube is the show, so if you go to ‘Cowboy Entrepreneur’ on YouTube, they can find us there. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter is all just ‘Cowboy Entrepreneur’. And a lot of other platforms; iHeart, Apple, Google and such.

Heidi Wright

Okay, one more question. If someone subscribes to Cowboy Entrepreneur, what can they expect to learn? What do they go away with?

Scott Knudsen

Oh, my goodness, the guest- they bring so much knowledge and passion about what they do, and their stories are so amazing. I do the show as a host and I learn every time. And after the show, I have so much passion about it, because the guests are just so wonderful. They just bring so many great stories at a high level that you might not know. And they let you into their secret where they failed and they kind of tell you how to get better.

Heidi Wright

And are they all business driven or are some not so much business driven? Is there just an array of sort of backgrounds,

Scott Knudsen

You know, they’re all entrepreneurs in a sense, as far as with business- the movie directors, the screenwriters, the Olympians, the horse trainers, they all have their own business. So, when we’re talking social media, we’re talking training or trucking customers, it’s just like you and I talking and that’s what’s so fun.

Heidi Wright

Awesome. Love that. Well, thanks so much again, Scott.