People Don’t Want a Consultant, They Want a Neighbor

But I didn’t know that going in.

Last Fall a guy bought a couple of trees from my site and added his cell number to the order with a note that said “Don’t contact me by email. If you have questions, call me.” I had a question about shipping – whether to send them in December or hold until Spring – so I called him up. I asked when he wanted the trees.

Then I asked, “So what’s your plan?”

Turns out he’d just bought a pasture and wasn’t sure what to do with it. He planned to plant some chestnuts over there. So we started talking. Actually, I did more listening. No pitch, no agenda, just two people talking about trees and pasture and what you do with 10 acres when you finally have it.

He bought $200 worth of trees before we hung up, including stuff I hadn’t even listed on the website yet. I helped him solve his problem and neither of us planned any of that. That wasn’t a sales call, it was a neighbor conversation that happened to start with an order confirmation.

The Hard Part

Doing a consult on someone’s land is harder than it sounds, and not because of the land. The land is easy – I do my research, I know my stuff. The hard part is Me.

I fight the Project Manager/PM spreadsheet brain that I’ve been sitting in all day at my job. You can actually hear it on some of my podcast episodes that I recorded right when I got off work, where there’s a version of me still halfway in a conference call trying to drive an agenda on a group that want a working session conversation instead.

I like talking about nut trees. That’s not a specific block of time with boundaries or borders where “we cover this, but not that, that will cost more, time’s up.” It goes where it goes.

Chestnut tree with catkins. I will have nuts this year!

Sometimes it goes the other way. They are going to DIY, so we dive into: Which variety is right for you, what spacing, how to handle deer in year one – and what they actually need is the PM brain. Clear, organized, here’s your answer, here’s your map, go plant trees. They don’t need me geeking out on Empire Elite or Revival chestnuts, they need the deliverable and they will do the DIY. Both are good outcomes.

The skill is knowing which one I am in.

When Charging for It Gets in the Way

Sometimes I show up for a local consult and I make a friend first. I don’t plan it that way, it just happens. Just like a couple of weeks ago.

We walked the land and he showed me what he’s been working on. He grafted pears onto the cursed Callery pears – those invasive ones that have taken over half the Midwest. Like me, he made it work. I was learning from him the same way he was learning from me.

We talked for a long time and I forgot to charge him for the consult. We’re planting my chestnuts in his pasture this Fall.

It all started because I showed up to do a job and a conversation broke out instead, and I had enough sense to let it.

Where’s the Line?

Someone wanted a free property walk with the energy of “we’ll think about it” underneath every question.

A project that sounded good but the spouse wasn’t on board yet, the decision wasn’t actually made – I could feel it, so I said No or I named the fee and let them decide.

Where’s the line between those two situations – the one where I forgot to send the invoice and the one where “it’s just business”?

It’s not in a project plan or a spreadsheet. It’s in my gut.

I can’t describe it beyond that.

I am a guy who grows chestnuts in Kansas, where we can go from 33 degrees to 96 in two days. Sometimes it feels like the odds are against me.

I write about building a real life instead of borrowing one.

Skills Over Stuff. Plant trees. Grow food. Build community.

Seeds (and trees) have a memory. They remember the place they came from – in Kansas it is those brutal winters, scorching summers, lack of rain for long periods of time.

New York may be Zone 5, but it is not Midwest Zone 5.

So where are your trees and seeds from? And do they know where they’re going?

My Midwest Memory trees are adapted to the Midwest Zones 5-7.