I recently went one-on-one with Trey Braswell, CEO of Braswell Family Farms.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Trey: I’m the 4th generation of Braswell men to run the feed and egg business now known as Braswell Family Farms. Each of those generations has had its unique struggles. For me personally, I had to grow up quickly and early, as my dad struggled with debilitating migraines and heart disease. I worked around the family business while I was growing up, and during college, I decided I would like the opportunity to return at some point. However, that point arrived sooner than I had hoped.
After college, I wanted to move out west for just a little while to get out from under everybody, but dad’s health continued to get worse. We had a good general manager in place at the time, but I felt a lot of pressure that someone from the family needed to be involved in the business on a day-to-day basis, so I decided to come back. I certainly was not prepared for it, but I felt a great sense of responsibility and had great respect for my family and all the people who had worked here for so long.
That in itself challenged me to grow, mature, and be more respectful, and to try to figure out how to honor my dad as both the owner of the business and my father. We didn’t agree on everything – it certainly looked different on day one than it did ten years later. Character is built in the fire, and all of those things just built character in me to help me grow.
At one point, I had questioned if I should even be leading the business. It wasn’t until about six or seven years ago that I said, “I’m supposed to be here, I’m going to stay.” It was a real setback, but it certainly helped me to grow and understand how I need to be as a leader and how I desire to interact with my children. If they ever come into the business one day, I’ll have learned a lot of things to do and not to do. You know, we don’t appreciate the good days if we didn’t have any bad days.
Adam: What are your best tips on the topics of sales, marketing, and branding?
Trey: We focus on the relationship. If you look at life, you want to buy from people or organizations you trust. The best organizations don’t just look at the price. They build relationships and move beyond just transactions.
I believe relationships are crucial because, in a world where eggs can become a commodity, success depends on more than just offering the lowest price. You need customers who value quality and connection, not just cost. It takes building the relationship, it takes providing the level of quality and service that they want. You need to have a relationship to help the customer understand that there’s value not just in the price, but in everything else. You don’t just want to be a transaction. You don’t just want to be the lowest-cost provider because there’s always someone who’ll do something cheaper.
But you’ve also got to build a brand that has a reputation or a story that people know. When people look at Braswell Family Farms, Natural Choice, or Eggland’s Best, they’re thinking quality; they’re always the safest. They say, “I feed it to my grandkids.” That’s just so important. Because, when it comes down to it, a buyer is going to care about a company that stands up for what it says it believes, that always delivers on quality and service, and that they can trust.
Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?
Trey: An absolute must for a leader is to have humility. That’s probably the biggest one, and it shows up in many ways. One, you must have gratitude for a job, a career, or a responsibility. Two, it shows up as being a lifelong learner and knowing that you don’t know it all. Because if you think you’ve arrived and know it all, you won’t be willing to listen to others.
A leader must have a passion for what they do and for the people they lead. Great leaders inspire people to reach places they wouldn’t go on their own – not just a physical location, but success and accomplishments. A leader needs to be someone who wants to see their team achieve great things, even if those things are greater than what that leader has accomplished. That’s both humility and understanding a calling.
A leader has to have a passion and desire. They have to have a willingness to be tough, and they have to understand that you can’t chastise or will people into achievement; you have to inspire them. They’ve got to want to follow you. So, you need their respect. Again, that’s humility and building great relationships. It’s an absolute requisite.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?
Trey:
- Pray: Without prayer and seeking guidance, we haven’t sought direction. Prayer reminds you that you’re not in it alone, and it helps you stay centered on purpose, not just performance.
- Hire People Smarter Than You: If everything in the company falls into the lap of the owner to make decisions or generate all the good ideas, you can’t grow – you can’t scale. So, the first thing I do is hire people smarter than me and then just give them opportunities to grow, because they’re the ones in the trenches. A company full of people with great ideas and leadership qualities is much better than an organization with only a single person in that role.
- Don’t Lose Focus on What’s Important: Find your core focus or purpose and put the energy on what is most important for your business. I often get carried away exploring new ideas, sometimes going too far and realizing I’ve diverted my focus and energy towards unnecessary pursuits. Also, don’t forget what’s most important in life.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?
Trey: I keep harping on this point, but I have always said the most critical part of my job is hiring people smarter than I am. I look around the room during meetings, and it’s clear I’ve been successful so far. But seriously, that’s foundational.
We’ve also always kept a focus on company culture and organizational health. That cannot be ignored or swept under the rug. It has to be spotlighted, because it’s too easy to want to shy away from it. I want my folks to be well-equipped as leaders in every sense of the word.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Trey: Results and relationships are like grace and truth. It’s not half-grace and half-truth. It’s all grace and all truth. You have to have relationships and results in business.
I learned this through experience. When I started early on, I think part of it was just feeling like there was a lot of pressure to perform for my dad, so I was really focused on results, or on changing what was broken and how to improve it. I could get really caught up in the results and not do a good job of building the relationships. But you also can’t be all about relationships and think, “Oh, the results are whatever they are.”
You don’t have to sacrifice [grace or truth]. We talk about that in business – you don’t have to lean towards results or lean towards relationships. Getting results doesn’t mean you’re mean, and having relationships doesn’t mean you’re slack. You’ve got to have both. You might see quick results by pushing hard, but building a healthy, lasting culture requires focusing beyond just immediate outcomes.
I do have one more. This may even be the best single piece of advice. My great-uncle, who was the second generation of the business, Uncle Gene, said, “Trey, I always thought I was supposed to work hard and then, when I got older, I’d retire and have fun and all that.” He said, “But when you get older, you don’t feel like having fun and all that.” So, he surprised me. He said, “Make sure you take time to have fun and vacation, spend time with your family.”
I think he realized he didn’t do a good job at that. It was good to hear that from him – it’s kind of like, don’t forget what matters most. Please don’t buy into the lie that you save the fun for the second half of life, because some of us don’t make it there. And when we get there, we don’t feel like it. So, make sure we work hard and play hard now.
Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?
Trey: At Braswell Family Farms, our core purpose is “to feed the body and the soul.” It’s why we exist. You have to know why you exist as an organization – why you do what you do. Figure it out and boil it down to make it as simple and pointed as possible, and then let that be your battle cry.
