Justine called a “unique relationship” with Darigold, the largest dairy cooperative in the Northwest. Regardless of who it’s working with, Justine said Udder Health does everything it can to support its customers, including making in-person visits to farms at a moment’s notice and helping with the interpretation of lab results in order to prevent future outbreaks. “Those of us who have contact with producers the most really make it a priority to make time and try and make sure they don’t fall between the cracks,” Justine said, noting it holds true regardless of the dairy’s size. “I spent a good amount of time on the phone this morning with a lady who owns a one-cow dairy in eastern Idaho, and she just wants to have the raw milk for herself. We’ll get maybe $30 worth of testing from her, but it doesn’t matter; it’s about the customer service.” Customer service isn’t the only area where Udder Health strives to excel, and that hunger for improvement is what lead the company to Sandler Training. Brian McKay, Udder Health’s field operations manager, made the connection. He’s a regular listener of the Sandler Training Radio Show and got involved in our Sales Mastery program long before he brought our services to the company at large. After Brian mentioned “working on Sandler” to Justine at a conference, her curiosity was piqued. When she moved back to Udder Health after finishing her Ph.D., she followed up with Brian, contacted Jim Stephens, and started helping her company use Sandler to take its sales and strategic planning to the next level. “I really did not turn my focus on it until I moved back and kind of reached out to Jim in terms of, okay, well you’ve mentioned coaching, you’ve mentioned this and that, and I want to explore some of these resources,” Justine said.
Until finding Sandler, Justine had been struggling with her new leadership role at Udder Health. She said taking the reins at the company had been exhausting, particularly as there was no road map for how she and Allan should share duties or how they would move the company forward. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Grad school was so easy compared to this,” she said. Justine is still looking for that happy balance, but a combination of Sandler’s leadership training and strategic planning, which is designed to map a company’s path to success, has improved her day- to-day experience. “There have been some tools in the leadership training I have found to be really helpful because they gave me a structure where I don’t have to make it up myself,” Justine said. “I’m still trying to figure out how to utilize the coaching in
beef, whey protein, and more in addition to milk. Its team of lab analysts tests for pathogens including E. coli, listeria, and salmonella. “We actually get some random samples,” said Liz Artho, the lab manager at the Jerome facility. “We have some mink farms in the area, so their food comes in here to be tested to make sure it doesn’t have too much bacteria for those minks to eat.” Liz said that despite those forays outside of its main industry, her team is uniquely positioned to help dairy farmers. “They’re more attuned to any changes that might be happening within the industry,” she said. “Maybe they’ve found different ways to test the milk and help the dairymen, or maybe they’ve heard about new pathogens coming around that the dairymen may not know about yet.” As for the other two facilities, the Udder Health lab in Layton, Utah, is a state- certified water testing lab, and the Bellingham, Washington, facility has what
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