What Do People Buy

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the Alumni Development Conference. While there, I had the opportunity to meet alumni members from around the country, form friendships with fellow National Officer Candidates, and listen to speakers that highlighted topics surrounding agricultural advocacy and literacy. The conference was incredible, and truly helped to build my understanding of how a thriving alumni affiliate can have a profound impact on an agricultural education program and FFA chapter.

There was one particular phrase that caught my attention and has stuck with me since I got back from Kansas City. During a presentation about agricultural advocacy, the speaker referenced a quote from Simon Sinek that reads, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” The full video can be watched here:

The video does an incredible job of explaining human nature and what truly drives our decision making, and it really made me start to wonder about how we market not only agriculture, but also FFA. Are we selling what we do, or why we do it?

When describing FFA, I have always spoken about how we are a youth led student organization which is rooted in agriculture. That our organization does business as the National FFA Organization instead of the Future Farmers of America to help encompass the broad scope of what agriculture entails and that our mission statement is to develop students’ potential for premier leadership, personal growth, and career success through agricultural education. These are all amazing talking points, and truly do show what it is that our organization does for students. However, these statements fail to answer the why we choose to exist as an organization.

Why do we choose to exist as an organization? The question seems simple enough, but as I thought about that question on the 4 hour car ride back from Kansas City, the answer seemed harder and harder to latch onto. It seems like there are many reasons that FFA exists as an organization. We have 5 paragraphs that exist in the form of the FFA creed that do an eloquent job of stating the importance of our organization, to ourselves as members, to the communities we are a part of, and the industry we participate in. However, the FFA creed is a difficult document to explain to someone outside of our organization. After 6 years of being an FFA member, I am still discovering all the intricacies of the FFA creed and what it truly means to say those words “I believe”.

No, we need something simpler to use when describing why our organization exists to stakeholders that may not have a firsthand experience with the impact that FFA makes. Luckily, the National FFA organization is filled with talented people that have already given us the roadmap to use – the FFA Vision Statement.

The full Vision Statement reads like this - Students whose lives are impacted by FFA and agricultural education will achieve academic and personal growth, strengthen American agriculture and provide leadership to build healthy local communities, a strong nation and a sustainable world. That is still a fairly long statement to explain, so they even shortened it to 3 main parts – FFA Grows Leaders, Builds Communities, and Strengthens Agriculture.

This vision says something truly profound, because it goes further than explaining what student’s gain from being a part of this organization. It is a statement about what happens beyond this organization. Ultimately, it’s a statement about why this organization matters to everyone, not just the students that were fortunate enough to have experienced it firsthand. It sets the stage for the what we do by explaining why we do it.

Grow leaders, build communities, and strengthen agriculture. These three statements are something that any person can buy into. So the next time someone asks you about the importance of FFA, explain the vision of FFA. Talk about how FFA has grown you as a leader both within and outside of FFA, how your chapter helps to build your community because of the leadership you have gained, and how there are over 629,000 young agriculturalists across this country that are working to make agriculture as strong as it ever has been. Because remember, people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

Michael Tupper

2016 Iowa FFA National Officer Candidate