The Rural Voice, 1982-07, Page 7"When I'm out in my garden, I've often thought if the farmers
could see me now they'd think I was two-faced."
was a good deal," says Lynch, "All 1 had
to do was pay for the feed. But I had to
keep track of that feed and there was
always a discussion at the end of the year.
Dad would think the production of my pigs
was pretty good when you considered the
pounds of feed and the pounds of pork. He
felt that somebody must have forgotten to
mark down some of those bags of feed as
they got dumped in."
Pat Lynch belonged to a number of 4 -II
clubs and held executive positions with
them. But he never became a part of the
junior farmer organization. "I felt that the
junior farmer club was more of a social
group," he says. "There were cliques and
you were either in or you were out. 1 went
to a number of the first meetings and 1 was
out. So that was it." As well, he was never
involved in organized sports as a young-
ster: "We (the family) had a higher
emphasis on work than on sports and as a
family -run farm there was no time for
sports."
Though his marks in English were
generally borderline. Lynch flowed with
the middle of the pack through five years
of arts at St. Peter's High School in
Peterborough. Upon graduation he got a
job with CGE as an apprentice tool and die
maker. He had in the back of his mind a
notion to work at the plant and farm in
partnership with one of his brothers. But
the bottom fell out of that idea when the
brother lost his supplementary income
because of an eye impairment and decided
to seek a fulltime off -the -farm job.
1n addition to that, some of Lynch's
co-workers at General Electric saw him as
more than a factory hand and urged him to
use his smarts to better advantage. One of
those workers was Wib Jones, whose
father, brothers and wife also were CGE
employees. In fact Lynch was at Jones'
house the night before he trucked off for
the University of Guelph and even then he
wasn't convinced he was doing the right
thing.
At Guelph he took general agricultural
courses for the first two years and then,
after being impressed by a professor
named Jack Tanner, he chose crop science
as his area of concentration. Originally he
had planned to major in livestock.
In 1970, when Lynch graduated from U
of G with his bachelor's degree, farm -
related jobs weren't plentiful. He and a
classmate made a game out of how many
job rejections they could acquire. About
the time the game was losing its appeal.
Lynch was hired by Maple Leaf Mills.
though he wasn't sure for what.
After bouncing through a number of the
company's departments he was directed
to travel with a salesman. who just
happened to be Irish. Eventually he was
sent out on his own to peddle the firm's
alfalfa, timothy and red clover seeds to
retailers. His territory was nine or ten
eastern Ontario counties stretching from
Gananoque to Arnprior. And when he
could fit them in he made some calls in
Quebec.
Pat Lynch the salesman was good at his
job. A lot of his success can be traced to his
hard-working background, but, too, he
honed his skills by listening to Maple
Leaf's salespeople and taking sales
courses. "A lot of the techniques 1 use now
are sales techniques," he says, "although
now I'm selling ideas." Lynch learned
how to court and woo. One of the lessons
he came to believe in was "The constant
wooer wins the fair maiden." The better
he became at wooing the better he wanted
to become, and his sales figures took off.
In fact it was almost unhealthy the way he
would get so excited and keyed up about
selling, particularly in the spring when his
wares were most in demand.
Then, at a sales meeting he can still
remember, it was announced that the
company was making some internal
changes and one of them was a doubling in
Thinking Computers?
Think
Carefully
Getting the right kind of business
system depends on a number of
things. To guide you through the
computer maze, we have a brochure
that's aimed at helping you identify
your computer needs. We also have
a team of Agriculture and Agri-
business professionals well -versed in
computer applications on the farm.
For a better idea of your data
processing requirements, contact the
Deloitte Haskins & Sells Associates
office nearest you and ask for a copy
of our brochure.
Deloitte
Haskios-SeIIs Associates
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS
Fred Mooney
380 Woolwich St.,
Guelph, Ont.
519-822-1090
Larry Rosevear
555 Waterloo St.,
London, Ont.
519-434-2191
Member: Canadian Association of Management Consultants
THE RURAL VOICEIJULY 1982 PG. 7