Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/1183212
E mily Smith continues her family's legacy by repre- senting the 6 th generation of Smiths to make her living in agriculture. Emily has always had a heart and aptitude for farming and pursued an education in crop science at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo CA after high school. She has since managed all levels and aspects of the family business together with her cousin, Zach Smith. Today she oversees all aspects of the business from growing practices, land management, labor negotiation and management, food safety and financial decision making. The Smith Family was one of the first to begin growing broccoli and cauliflower on a large scale on the east coast in the 1980s. Smith's Farm carries on those practices under Emily's leadership and continues to grow in scale by supplying out of Maine, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida with gap production sources in California. Emily has faced many challenges in adapting practices and protocols to multiple east coast regions as means of supplying Smith customers 12 months a year and producing a consistent and reliable product her customers can count on in the Stag label first copyrighted in 1959 by her great uncle Herschel Smith. Preserving the reputation and future of the family business is Emily's greatest priority. This requires her to stand in front and continue to push her team forward in all aspects of the business, especially the use of technology to improve outcomes and efficiencies. Emily Smith President, Managing Partner of Smith's Farm, Inc. PA N E L I S T 1. Your 1 st loss is your best loss: Don't hold on too tight, sometimes the quicker you let go of a deal that goes bad, the better off you are. 2. It's not the deal, it's what the deal leads to: The world is a small place, so lots of times it's the people we meet or the trails that we travel that come back around to possibilities and opportunities you didn't see the first time. 3. Hire good people, pay them well, and get out of their way: Empower your people, let them have the success. 4. No one should decide for another person, how much is enough: All too often you hear, "that should be good enough," and we all have our goals and vision of what is enough, so don't stand in the way. 5. If you lose the confidence of your people, you're beat: If your employees can't trust you or question your integrity, it's hard to attract good people for your team. 6. An elephant for a dollar is only a good deal if you need the elephant and have the dollar: Be careful not to jump at something just because it sounds like a deal. 7. If you're not in a little trouble, you're probably not doing anything: You should always have something sold that you don't have bought or a load bought that you don't have sold or you have both, but no truck to haul it. 8. If they don't want to buy it, how are we gonna stop them? Find humor in ugly situations, it will help ease the soul. 9. Nothing good happens after midnight. Sometimes you're better off to start again in the morning. 10. We all always only see what we do. In a business with defined roles and family, it's important to have empathy for the other person's struggles as you do for your own. Everybody has a hard job, respect other's talent.