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Do what you love; love what you do.
Influencing before influencers were a thing.
I’ve always had a knack for being direct. As a long-term Bader Rutter PR practitioner and a fifth-generation rancher at HJ Bar Ranch in southeast Nebraska, it’s in my DNA to tell it to you straight. Whether standing chuteside working cattle or talking marketing strategy in a boardroom, direct is my approach.
My plain-speaking style and experience plays an early role when our BR teams brainstorm ideas for ag new biz pitches, product launches and campaigns. I help our teams feel what it’s like bouncing in the tractor seat, staring up at the sky hoping for rain, and wiping wet, frigid snow off your face when nighttime calving checks happen during a blizzard. And somehow, nighttime calving checks seem to always happen during a blizzard.
I can help our marketing teams understand what it means to worry about the details around weaning beef calves, the importance of baling hay when the alfalfa crop’s moisture level is just right and the need for resource conservation and sustainability. Firsthand experience helps me share the high expectations farmers and ranchers have for new technology launches and the importance of the problems they aim to solve. I’ve hosted many of my BR teammates at my place to do health processing on calves, plant and harvest. We’ve eaten cheeseburgers and drank coffee and beer with my neighbors in my hometown. And we’ve told stories. Lots of stories.
I help my BR teammates understand the hope we put into a kernel of corn, an injection of antibiotic or a new piece of equipment. We talk about the feeling of desperation when a disease outbreak hits, commodity markets plunge and drought persists. I share the frustration at how government seems to crawl while regulations gain speed.
And I also help them understand the pure joys in agriculture: the charm of baby calves, the security of adequate rain, the blessing of lush pastures and healthy crops. Nothing is better than the feeling of pride as our 4-H and FFA chapters flourish and new generations of agriculturalists head to college and come back to take over our ranches and farms. You don’t have to look far to find support, fun and fellowship in our small towns.
The insights I share shape ideas, approaches and responses. They help to make us better. And they’ve made us different from our competition. I’m proud to work in agriculture. And equally proud to have started influencing long before influencers were ever a thing.
About the Author
Lori Hallowell is a fifth-generation rancher and 29-year veteran of Bader Rutter. Lori and her husband, Paul, own a herd of commercial Black Angus cattle and dryland farm near Palmyra, Nebraska. Lori and Paul own a direct-to-consumer beef business. At Bader Rutter, Lori co-leads the PR department as a VP, group director, and helps BR teams use PR as part of integrated campaigns to solve problems and grow business. Lori is a proud Cornhusker and graduated from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. She serves on several boards of directors for associations, businesses and philanthropies.
