Are You Going to Get Spanked This Year?

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In This Issue:

• Early Orders: Guarantee Yourself a Sales Increase Every Year!

• Boogeyman: Have Your Sales Reps Been Scared Straight?

• Trouble Calls: Are You Going to Get Spanked This Year?

EARLY ORDERS
Guarantee Yourself a Sales Increase Every Year!

Chills ran up and down my spine as I watched an interview with Caitlin Clark, the basketball phenom and world record setter in shooting for the Iowa Hawkeyes at the University of Iowa. She’s now part of the Indiana Fever WNBA Team.

In her humble way she said her goal during her basketball career is to get young girls to yell as loud as they can because they’re so excited about watching and playing basketball when they get older. 

She said she didn’t make women’s basketball greater; women’s basketball has always been great. But Caitlin says she’s just had the privilege of generating excitement around the game.

Caitlin says "I don't want my legacy to be, Caitlin won X number of games or Caitlin scored X amount of points. I hope it's what I was able to do for the game of women's basketball that’s remembered." 

It’s no secret how Caitlin became such a great player.

Everyone knows it takes countless hours of practice, more practice than any average person can imagine. Everyone knows it requires working hard to do the hardwork. Everyone knows she probably worked harder and did as much or more of the hardwork than anyone else so she could fulfill her dream of playing professional basketball.

To Caitlin, guaranteeing her success meant hardwork and hardwork meant practicing more hours with both her Team and alone. Hardwork meant pushing through the pain of fatigue when the others were ready to quit. Hardwork meant never giving up, even when they were behind in the score.  That philosophy virtually guaranteed her success and applies to every aspect of one’s life.  

I’ve been accused of working my students too hard during trainings I’ve conducted over the years. For more than 10 years I drilled my Karate students hard so they could be the best when it came time to have their skills tested.

The result, they basically cleaned house at tournaments, defeating competitors, older, larger and higher ranked than they were. They rose in rank faster than others and virtually guaranteed their success. 

For more than 15 years as training officer for our Fire and Rescue Department I pushed our guys to the limit during every training. We conducted more hot drills and performed more rescues using live victims during training than any department around. The result, one of the most well-prepared and effective volunteer fire and rescues services in the state. It virtually guaranteed our success.

For more than 17 years I drove our seed sales force hard to be the best they could be at selling seed so they could achieve both their goals and our company objectives. The result was 17 consecutive years of sales increases resulting in every employee, sales or non-sales, handsomely rewarded for being part of a successful Team. In all of the above cases, we worked harder than most to achieve our goals and virtually guaranteed our success every year.

But success is not just about working hard.

It’s also about doing the hard work. That is, taking on the most challenging tasks that are neither easy nor pleasant and overcoming the obstacles average sellers avoid. Some forms of hard work such as prospecting every day and going on trouble calls are downright painful. There are many things in life that are hard but need to be addressed to achieve a goal. What I find most rewarding about the hard work is it automatically places you above the large group of people who avoid it.  

Two factors are key to success. They are working hard and hard work. When you work hard you overcome the hard work. I hate to see talent wasted due to lack of effort. And for any level of talent to be maximized both working hard and hard work must be part of the formula.  

I wasn’t born with the greatest amount of natural talent, but few people are willing to work harder than me and are less afraid of hardwork than I am. If you want to be a winner at any position in life you must work hard to conquer the hardest work. It’s as simple as that.    

The number one thing that keeps seed sellers from achieving their goals is not lack of product, lack of knowledge and information, lack of programs or lack of company support. All of those things are just excuses for not wanting to work hard at doing the hardwork. The real reason is lack of willingness to take on the most challenging jobs (hard work) by working hard.   

If you want to guarantee success in your business and your life, outwork everyone else in two areas.  Work harder and do the hardwork. Spend more time preparing and practicing, making more sales calls, asking for larger orders, riding more harvesters, spending more time selling and having a better attitude than anyone else.  

What you’ll find is that working harder will have paid off and virtually guaranteed your success because of one simple fact.

You did the hard work others weren’t willing to do.  

BOOGEYMAN
Have Your Sales Reps Been “Scared Straight”?

Some readers who follow me accuse me of being brutally hard on salespeople. As they say, perception is reality so I guess I am, a little brutal, when it comes to teaching and coaching.

I didn’t learn this stuff from a book, I learned it from the school of hard knocks, you know, where experience comes before the lesson.

I also learned it by plenty of confrontations with the Boogeyman. As we train and I tell my students how much the Boogeyman can hurt sales or even kill them, I always hope the newbies and even so-called veterans would get the message and make the changes they needed to make to protect their sales.

But it doesn’t matter how brutal I am in my teachings because I can’t outdo the brutality of the Boogeyman showing up causing a good customer to say he doesn’t want to buy anymore.

That, my fellow street fighter, is the epitome of brutality and a small sample of what the Boogeyman can do. 

The reason I’m so straightforward when I teach reps how to sell seed to farmers is, if you don’t push them outside their comfort zones they don’t take it seriously enough and change. You almost have to “scare them straight” by showing them when they don’t follow the 21^st century rules of selling seed to farmers, the Boogeyman shows up.  

Anyone who has been selling to farmers very long understands what the Boogeyman is capable of. Allowing customers to take your varieties and plant them whenever and wherever they want is a sure way to wake up the Boogeyman.

Selling a new prospect a trial size order or just one variety will surely put a Boogeyman on your doorstep. Not being there when your varieties are being harvested always brings a number of Boogeymen out of hiding in the form of dissatisfied and stolen customers.

The problem is, too many sales rep don’t want to do what they need to do to keep the Boogeyman away. Most often they believe it won’t happen to them.

There are signs that tell sales reps they need to be scared straight and prepare for the Boogeyman.

First, they don’t believe in using a sales calendar as their plan for their entire sales year. They don’t realize that if every day on their calendar doesn’t have their name on it, it’s not their day, it belongs to anyone who wants to ask them for it and that takes time away from them.

Second, if they don’t realize they’re the ONLY reason farmers buy, they don’t know how to make themselves the value so they stay out of price fights and yield contests. 

Next, if sales reps are afraid to turn into driveways and prospect for new business, they lack confidence. Virtually every field seller I know, including the top ones, are always a little nervous when calling on farmers they don’t know. A little bit of nervousness is good. But being afraid is not good, it will keep you from taking action.

Finally, and worst of all, if any of your field sellers are afraid to ask for the order, you’re in serious trouble. No amount of training will help them sell more if they’re afraid to lead them to writing an order. That is the worst Boogeyman of all, missed sales goals.

Success is all about confidence that comes from competence.

You must have both to keep the Boogeyman away. If you don’t have both, don’t worry, the Boogeyman will show up and scare you straight.

Trouble Calls
Are You Going to Get Spanked This Year?  

When I was in 3^rd grade, I sat across the isle from a boy named Thomas.

Thomas liked being the class clown and was always making jokes and acting up in class. Back in my day, that was a very dangerous thing to do because if you were caught misbehaving too much the teacher would send you to the Superintendent’s office. (we didn’t have principals back then) And when you were sent to the Superintendent’s office it was the final straw for the teacher so you knew for sure you were going to get spanked.

I was told by previous “criminals” who had experienced that fate, that the Superintendent would meet you at the door, grab you by the seat of the pants, plop you over his desk and spank you. I don’t recall a girl ever being sent there, it was always the boys who were acting up.

I was afraid of trouble because I knew whatever I got for being bad at school wouldn’t be half as bad as I would get when I got home so I was always good. But just seeing the Superintendent gave me chills and reminded me to be on my best behavior.

One day, when Thomas was acting up he didn’t get sent to the office. The teacher had told the Superintendent ahead of time about Thomas constantly disrupting her class and that she was unable to control him. So on this particular day, unknown to Thomas, the Superintendent was watching through a small window in the door outside our room.

When Thomas defied the teacher’s orders to settle down, the door opened quietly and the big disciplinarian walked in. Chills went through my entire body as I watched the Superintendent walk up behind unsuspecting Thomas, grab him by the belt at the back of his blue jeans, plop him face down on his desk and spank him, right there.

The teacher had no more problems with Thomas or anyone else in the class the rest of the year. Nobody wanted any of that kind of trouble.

That story took place in 1960 when the attitudes toward disciplining children were a lot different and trouble was taken care of swiftly with corporal punishment being handed out freely. 

But getting into trouble and being spanked hasn’t gone away when it comes to selling seed. Sales reps get spanked all of the time and most of them have it coming. That’s because they don’t know how to properly behave in front of customers. 

For example, how many times have you written an order with a new prospect who later called and canceled it?

You got spanked and deserved it because none of those varieties were attached to a field.

How many times has a farmer planted your varieties and later told you they didn’t perform as good as what he’s been planting?

You got spanked because you allowed him to treat your varieties the same as all of the others he was already experienced with. Knowing all varieties require different management to perform to their potential should have kept you out of the Superintendent’s office.

How many times have you entered somebody’s test plot because you didn’t want to be called chicken and got beat?

You got spanked good because now your chances of selling to any farmers who saw the data are zero, including the one who had the plot.

And how many times have you entered someone’s test plot and won the plot but didn’t sell any seed because of it?

You got spanked because no one buys your products, they buy on perceptions of the company they want to work with. The result is, they will ask you to win the same plot again to prove yourself because it must have been pure luck. 

Those are just a few of the spankings reps get every year.

However, the real rounds of corporal punishment are handed out at harvest when sales reps aren’t there, in the field or on the combine with customers. Because of the 1000 variables that impact the performance of varieties every year, many wrong assumptions are made during harvest. If you’re not there to direct the thoughts customers have in the right direction, you will get the worst spanking of all, a lost customer along with the chance to sell anyone else he talks to. 

No one is totally immune from being spanked, but doing the right things can greatly minimize the chances of you being bent over the knees of customers.

By the way, Thomas was a small guy for his age but tough as nails. He never cried when he got that hard spanking from the Superintendent. I just remember his face getting red from embarrassment.

Then, after he was plopped back in his seat and the Superintendent had left, he looked over at me with half grin on his face and said, UUFDA! We could barely keep from laughing but that would have been suicide. 

What’s your response going to be if you get spanked this year?

You better not cry either because like Thomas, it will have been your own fault.

Just say UUFDA and don’t do it again.

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