Want to Win? Time to Change!

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In This Issue:

• Early Orders: Want to Win? Time to Change!

• Boogeyman: Is Your Own Sales Force Your #1 Boogeyman?

• Sales Objection: Everyone is Talking Up My Competition

EARLY ORDERS
Want to Win? Time to Change!

Do you see this year for what it is, or for what it can be?

Jameson Frank said, “Our Greatest Battles Are Those Within Our Own Minds!” 

That’s so true, especially when it comes to doing something we’ve never done before or, when we face challenges we’ve never faced.

Change scares most of us.

Every day in this business we have lots of opportunities to change, but that means taking thoughts of changing and putting them into action.

Scientists have discovered that more than 60,000 thoughts go through the average person’s mind every day, but less than 5% of them are acted on.

That’s because they don’t “see” most of those thoughts as improvement opportunities for their life or their job, or they’re just afraid to try something new. That means the other 95% of those thoughts are not acted on and instead lay dormant, often forgotten.

Seed sellers are no exception to this scientific discovery.

They too have missed more than 95% of the signals telling them to change how they’re relating to farmers so they can lead customers where they don’t know they need to go. Our seed marketplace is sending thousands of new thoughts and ideas toward seed sellers every day, all of them denoting the need to change. Even so, most sellers don’t see the real value in making those changes.

Take the planter visit for example.

So many field salespeople see the planter visit for what they believe it is, a time to bother customers and not for what it can be, the only time to change how a customer thinks to ensure maximum performance of their varieties.

When done right, the planter visit changes how customers think about raising a crop which means it changes how you think about ensuring your varieties perform to their potential.

You realize by getting customers to change their thinking, they take more time to plant your varieties with more care, thus yields, profit and your sales all go up.

But if the planter visit strategy doesn’t fit into your old, 20th century style of doing business, you won’t do them.

Post planting report card visits, writing cropping plans before harvest and riding combines in the fall are the same way. As long as salespeople continue to refuse to change how they think about employing these new, innovative strategies, they will continue to lose business and customers.

Their products will continue to perform at various levels and customers will continue to take them to price. As Jameson Frank said, “Our greatest battles are those within our own minds.”

If you want to win you need to make sure you’re always changing.

If you lose a customer it’s seldom due to product performance but instead to lack of performance by the sales rep. The rep is not interested enough in his or her job to keep farmers interested in theirs. If you’re not bringing the thunder, these modern-day growers won’t think about bringing you into their operation.

Why should they?

They see you as a follower and not a leader.

Step up and become a change artist, one who constantly challenges the status quo and is always looking for better ways to get into the heads of farmers.

If you don’t know where to begin, start with the SeedSeller Blueprint, it will lead you far beyond where 98% of all salespeople are today.

BOOGEYMAN
Is Your Own Sales Force Your #1 Boogeyman?

Many companies sell their products through farmer dealers, retailers and distributors.

The question asked most often is, are those sellers customers of the company they represent?

The average sales rep will say, of course they are, as farmer dealers they’re buying a lot of our products for their own use and that makes them our customers.

Retailers and distributors who don’t farm sell our products so they must be customers too. In fact, all of them are the epitome of good customers.

That’s what average sales reps would say.

But smart, more informed reps would disagree and state heck no, none of them are customers, they’re part of our marketing team. If they consider themselves customers of ours we’re in trouble.

Why aren’t those different types of sellers customers when they sell and use so much of your products?

There are two reasons.

One, the company’s job is to “serve” customers and be at their beckon call. The company’s job is not to “serve” their farmer dealers, retailers and distributors but to support them in every way possible so they can best “serve” their customers. Their job is to take care of every one of their customer’s needs.

It’s not the company’s job.

The farmer dealers, retailers and distributors are part of a company’s sales force and not part of their customer base.

The second reason farmer dealers, retailers and distributors aren’t customers is because many in those groups don’t qualify to be called customers. Farmers who sell seed are supposed to be buying all of their own needs from the company they represent.

Too many farmers call themselves seed dealers but don’t buy 100% of their needs from the company they sell for. What kind of message does that send to people they are trying to sell?

A large farmer who sold seed for a regional company called me one day, frustrated that he couldn’t get customers to increase their order sizes from year to year. He said many had been buying the same small amount of seed from him since they first started buying. He asked me why they weren’t willing to buy more because performance was not the issue.

That question had several possible answers but instead of answering it I asked him the most important question of all. I asked him if he was planting 100% of his farm to the products he sells.

He said, “Heck no, as a seed dealer I need to know if there is anything better out there so I plant about one-fourth of my acres to various competitive varieties.”

I told him that was his problem and that he needed to either totally get in the game with his company or give up his dealership. He said, “What do you mean?” I said no one believes in the varieties you sell enough to plant more on their farms because you don’t believe in them enough to commit your entire farm to them. Why should they trust you enough to buy more from you? Right now they’re just buying enough to be nice and get rid of you. Until you commit to being 100% loyal to your own company, no one is going to follow your lead, I know I wouldn’t.

He looked at me in shock but surprisingly it made sense to him.

The other problem is so many retailers and distributors can’t be considered customers because they aren’t totally committed either. Many of them sell several different brands and become a Walmart for the seed business. They really aren’t committed to anyone.

Anyone who sells for you is part of your marketing team which means they need to be committed enough that the farmers they call on can see and feel that commitment. Stop treating those people like customers. There is only one customer and that is the farmer who is not selling for you but buying your products. And even the farmer himself is only considered a customer when he’s buying at least 51% or more of his needs from you. That means he is more committed to you than your competition.

Show your dealers, retailers and distributors what marketers do and that is make sure their customers get everything they need. Remember, your goal is not to “serve” your sellers but to have them “serve” their own customers.

Their job is to think and act like a marketer and should never consider themselves a customer because you don’t.

SALES OBSTACLE
Everyone is Talking Up My Competition  

This obstacle is from Tim, he says:

I’m having a very hard time in my territory this year. It seems like everywhere I’ve been; my major competitor has already been there. They may not have physically called on my customers, but they’ve managed to get into their minds.

This is making it a lot harder for me to sell them.

What can you do about a company that’s doing a good job in your territory and has everyone talking about them? All of my prospects and customers want to talk about is my competition and how good their varieties are.

Please help me.

Great question Tim.

We’ve all faced this situation in our selling career. In fact, nearly every year I sold seed I had at least one competitor who was creating what seemed like an inordinate amount of hype in parts of my territory. They had the attention of a lot of farmers but seldom can a single company dominate the mind of every grower.

There are two keys to working your way through this kind of challenge. First, you need to realize the reason your competitor is causing you problems is because you allowed it.

One of the primary rules of selling is understanding that competitors can’t take current customers away from you. You have to give them up first. Your customers were already “flirting” with your competitor before they started actually “dating” them. The flirting started because you allowed your customers to lose their attraction to you. They became bored with what you were offering and no longer saw value in it.

You need to review the values you’re bringing to them (other than product) and drive those values into your growers’ minds over and over. It can be as simple as refreshing your sales approach and sales story. That means challenging your customers to do things they’ve never done before that will bring real value to their bottom lines.

Your messages must be directed at how you help farmers take yields and profits to new levels without considering the products you sell. Do you have them following the Top 5 Factors, planting only one variety per field, setting goals for each field and planting portfolios? I’ll bet the answer is no.

Second, you need to stop working for this major competitor when you’re on sales calls. Right now, you’re apparently doing a good job of representing your competitor instead of you and your company. As I said, I’ve been confronted with this kind of situation over the years but never went so far as to work for my competitors.

Your sales call approach is clear.

You’re letting customers take the lead and control the conversation. Why do they even have an opportunity to talk about your competitor?

That name should never come up during your conversations unless you bring it up or you let it come up.

You need to be in control of the conversation from start to finish, leading them toward how you help growers increase yields and profit in each field. From the minute you get out of your vehicle until you leave, you’re the one who decides the course of the conversation.

Take control so you can lead growers where you want them to go.

Get in control so you can talk about how you bring values farmers need and want. That way they won’t have the opportunity (or reason) to talk about the competition.

That’ll make sure what’s talked about focuses totally on how you help farmers grow their businesses long-term, which is why you’re there in the first place.

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