CRYSTALYX® Brand Supplements have existed since the late 1970s. Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of things work well and have watched our customers, young and old alike, succeed with CRYSTALYX programs. Of course, none of this success has happened by accident: good ideas were shared by those of us working in the business, and even better ideas came from livestock producers who fed the product.
I often get asked what makes CRYSTALYX so successful and, while I often cite the above, as far as the product itself, there are four things that seem to stand out:
- Quality and consistency of intake
- Forage utilization
- Animal health and performance
- Ease of management
The founder’s mentality
I recently had the opportunity to attend the CRYSTALYX dealer convention in Canada, along with several of my colleagues and a long-time distributor. Several new customers were in attendance, as well as many older ones. This mixed group was good to see and served as a reminder that, while we learn from past generations, we are also responsible for teaching and honing the skills of future generations. This distributor has been selling CRYSTALYX for nearly 30 years. Their business includes dealers who are in their third generation of ownership, as well as new dealers who are just starting out. Overall, the business for these customers continues to grow. But how? They cover the fundamentals and cover them well, and they stick to many principles that have worked for customers in the past and continue to today. In fact, the focus of the dealer convention this year was: “Basics of CRYSTALYX.”
At Alltech®, the parent company of CRYSTALYX, there’s an internal sharing/learning concept called the “Founder’s Mentality.” In March of this year, Alltech’s founder, Dr. Pearse Lyons, sadly passed away, leaving an unprecedented legacy in this industry. Alltech was established in 1980 and, like most successful startup businesses, its success was attributed to a founder’s mentality that focused on the front line of sales and customers. When I think of the success of CRYSTALYX over the years, many of these same concepts apply; it’s about the customers’ needs and success.
Setting the stage
Programs in agriculture that teach our youth are very near and dear to me. I was a past member of 4-H and FFA and am now a parent to children active in the same programs. I volunteer each summer to help conduct our county fair livestock shows, and I see firsthand how much good these organizations do while developing good community citizens and leaders.
In 2015, I wrote a blog about the CRYSTALYX Earn to Learn™ program. This is a youth fundraising program that gives student youth organizations the opportunity to sell discount cards to livestock producers. All proceeds from the sale of these cards are kept by the youth organizations. Cards then can be redeemed at participating CRYSTALYX dealers, earning that producer a discount on CRYSTALYX product that’s greater than what was spent for the card.
Most of what we do in agriculture and other industries is about the next generation and striving to make life better for ourselves, our community and our world — sounds a bit like the 4-H pledge, doesn’t it? Striving to do better is where a lot of ideas are born. I’m proud to say that a lot of the successful CRYSTALYX ideas and applications used today were initially thought of by our team! Many ideas were met with skepticism, but now, have several competitors attempting to duplicate our products. Moving forward, we will need the next generation to continue innovating while still using the basic fundamentals, too. As in the past, it won’t happen by accident. This is how agriculture has advanced for our generation and will continue to do so for those to come.
