Shine your light on challenges.
We can learn a great deal from John Deere, the manufacturer of agricultural equipment and not primarily from their machinery.
In 1895, Charles Deere, the founder’s second son, made a decision that must have seemed puzzling to at least some of his colleagues at the time. He launched a magazine. Not to advertise John Deere products. Not to showcase the company’s latest ploughs or cultivators. But to help farmers succeed at farming.
The magazine was called The Furrow. It was subtitled “A Journal for the American Farmer.” And it is still in publication today.
The most radical editorial decision in marketing history #
Consider what Charles Deere was proposing. Printing and distributing a magazine in 1895 was expensive. There were no digital economies of scale. Every copy cost real money to produce and deliver. And the content strategy? Focus on farmers’ challenges, agricultural advancements, and practical solutions to real problems, with barely a mention of John Deere equipment.
The editor who has worked on The Furrow for decades put it simply: “Even the most technical subject has to have a human story behind it. We’ve always been able to convince management that the content shouldn’t be about John Deere equipment. We’ve stuck to that the whole time.”
By conventional marketing logic, this made no sense. By relationship logic, it was genius.
By 1912 The Furrow had reached a peak circulation of 4 million subscribers; an extraordinary number for a branded publication in the pre-digital era. Today it is published in 14 languages across more than 100 countries, and readership surveys show that 40% of readers read every single word in every single issue, including the advertisements, generating approximately 25 million impressions per year.
The magazine that didn’t talk about its products built one of the most loyal readerships in publishing history.
Why helpfulness builds what advertising cannot #
The psychology behind The Furrow’s success is straightforward once you see it.
When someone helps you solve a problem with no obvious immediate benefit to themselves, something shifts in how you think about them. You stop seeing them as a supplier trying to extract value and start seeing them as someone who understands your world and cares about your success.
For a farmer reading The Furrow in 1910, the progression was something like this. Before The Furrow: “John Deere makes ploughs. I need a plough. Let me evaluate whether theirs is the best option based on features and price.” After years of The Furrow: “John Deere has been helping me run my farm better for a decade. They understand agriculture. When I need equipment, of course I’ll consider them first.”
That shift, from transactional evaluation to relationship of trust, is what advertising cannot manufacture and helpfulness can. Advertising tells people what to think about you. Helpfulness shows them, repeatedly and practically, that you understand their situation and want them to succeed.
The Furrow didn’t interrupt farmers with sales messages. It showed up consistently, issue after issue, decade after decade, providing genuine value with no immediate ask.
Media differ. The principle doesn’t. #
The medium Charles Deere chose in 1895 was print. The equivalent choice for a small business owner in 2026 might be a LinkedIn post, a Resources Hub, an email newsletter, a short guide, or a brief video. The format has changed beyond recognition. The principle has not moved an inch.
Focus on your client’s challenges, not your products. Answer the questions they are asking. Share the insights that would genuinely help them, even when those insights have no immediate commercial return. Do this consistently and for long enough that the people who need what you offer come to think of you first when they are ready.
This is not a complicated strategy. It is a patient one which is perhaps why so few businesses sustain it long enough to see the compound effects.
Caring before knowing #
Damon Richards captured the underlying dynamic in a single sentence:
“Your customer doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
The Furrow is 130 years of evidence that he is right.
The farmers who became loyal John Deere customers didn’t do so because they were outmanoeuvred by clever advertising or persuaded by aggressive sales tactics. They did so because, over years of reading, a company had demonstrated consistently and practically that it understood their world and wanted them to thrive in it.
That is what caring looks like in business. Not warm words on a website. Not a mission statement. Consistent, practical helpfulness, sustained over time, without counting the immediate return.
Helpfulness and support: old school ways still relevant today.
Still the most powerful strategy available to any business willing to be patient enough to use it.
Thank you for reading.
Author: Richard Bull-Domican, founder of New Era Financial Introductions, a B2B lead generation consultancy with over twenty years of experience. The perspectives shared here come from two decades in the field; not theory, but practice.
I create small, digestible guides on Gumroad for business owners who hate aggressive tactics and prefer relationship-led approaches. New resources are added regularly. For longer reads on lead generation and the human side of sales, follow me on Medium and join the daily conversation on LinkedIn.
Gumroad: https://richardbulldomican.gumroad.com/
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardbulldomican/
