7 Reasons to STOP Writing Orders [Academy]

Do you know how to get farmers to order seed when YOU want them to order…

Stop Writing Orders.

When’s the last time prospects and customers in your area ordered seed from you on YOUR time schedule instead of theirs?

When’s the last time your customers called you right after planting or in early summer when the crop is growing to ask when you’re going to come and get their seed order?

When’s the last time current customers told you they needed to increase the size of their seed order for the next year, not because your varieties did so well, but because they took on more acres and needed seed for those new fields without you asking?

And when’s the last time customers told you they had the best yield in a certain field they ever had because you placed the right variety in that field based on what was on the order blank?

The answers to those questions was probably, NEVER.

Why is that?

It’s because 99% of all seed sellers are still writing orders with their customers instead of cropping plans.  Orders are nothing but a dead-end street. They put not responsibility in the customer’s hands and get not results because of it. 

Farmers aren’t waiting to order until after harvest because they want to see how the crop does first or how certain varieties perform like most salespeople think. It’s not because ordering prior to harvest is too early and they don’t know what they’re going to do yet. And it’s not because they don’t want to increase yields in every field. Those are the excuses most farmers give. The real reason farmers don’t order seed for next year before harvest is because the seed varieties they order are placed on an order blank and order blanks are really just, BLANK ORDERS. That’s right. They are BLANK ORDERS that give the grower no help in raising a better crop. They have absolutely no value to any farmer. 

Listen to some of the things orders do not do.

1. Orders don’t get any real commitment from the grower because little or no planning goes into creating an order by either the seller or the buyer.
2. Because there is no real commitment, orders are easily changed or even replaced by competitors. 
3. The wrong seed varieties are on every single order blank because none of those went through a planning process for how they fit a specific field. 
4. There is no field visit when writing orders to attach the right variety to the right field.
5. Even if certain varieties were placed on an order blank with an idea of where they will be planted, come spring, the chances of farmers remembering where they’re supposed to go by that time are slim and none.   
6. Varieties written on an order blank have little chance of performing at the top because there’s no plan on how the field the variety will be planted in will be managed.  
7. Many of the varieties written on order blanks won’t get planted but will be returned because the varieties on an order are not attached to a field so there is no commitment to a plan, it’s just an order.

In this marketplace there is no such thing as an early order or a solid order because orders themselves have no value, yet companies are still trying to get them early. Orders have value ONLY when they’re attached to a cropping plan. Just as the new sales season starts the minute planters roll, the crop planning season begins at the same moment for the grower. Planting season signals the end of the old planning season and the start of the new planning season. Every day a grower waits to begin his cropping plan for next year once planting starts, the farther behind he gets and the more bushels it costs him through decision making delays.   

So instead of trying to get farmers to order earlier, we need to get them to stop writing orders period, and start doing cropping plans. Once they understand how cropping plans are different from orders, they will see the many benefits cropping plans bring and stop worrying about ordering early or writing an order period. 

Be sure to view the “Cropping Plans Win Sales, Orders Kill Sales video in Academy 101. It will give you even more reasons to stop writing orders with growers or if you are already writing cropping plans ways to do them even better.

Happy Selling,

Rod