Don’t Let Customers Waste Valuable Time [Academy]

Don’t Let Customers Waste Valuable Time?

You’ve all heard the quote by Abraham Lincoln, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

A sales rep was trying to get one of her good customers who was notorious for doing his cropping plan late, to stop putting it off.  The farmer started telling her during the summer that he wanted to wait until after harvest to see what the crop was going to do before he put together his cropping plan and wrote his seed order.

But when harvest was over, his next comment was, “Input costs are too high so I want to wait for the deals to come out before I decide what I’m going to do.” And when the rep contacted him again, he said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. My wife and I are going on a trip to Europe for two weeks. When we get back we can talk about  the crop plan. 

You will still have plenty of seed for me.  

Soon, after they had returned from their trip the rep stopped to see him. It was only about 8 weeks from planting.  The farmer and his wife were both very excited to share their vacation experience with the young rep so she listened intently.  At just the right moment the rep said to the farmer and his wife, “It sounds like that was quite an amazing trip. It must have taken a lot of planning. How much time did you guys spend planning for that beautiful vacation?”  The farmer proudly replied, “We planned for nearly six months and we kept updating the itinerary as the time got closer. All of the pre-trip planning really paid off because that’s what made the trip such a success. It was also less stressful once we knew the plan was in place and all we had to do was follow it.”

The rep realized this was a teaching moment and a great opportunity so she took advantage of it and said to them, “You and your wife spent six months planning your vacation, but you’ve yet to spend even one hour putting together a plan for your farming business that made that kind of vacation possible. At what point did you decide to leave the success of your farming operation to chance and instead, create a serious plan for a vacation?” The farmer turned to her with a sheepish look and said, “Oh my gosh, you’re right.  I don’t have much time left do I.”  The rep said no you don’t.” She had made an impact on this procrastinator but she wasn’t going to stop there. She said, “Let’s get started right now, but when we do, I want you to make me a promise.” He said, “Ok.”  “I want you to promise you will take all of the benefits you experienced from planning your amazing trip and apply them to your farming operation so we can make it amazing too.

Early planning is the number one factor to raising top yields so promise me that you will help me raise your yields by following my lead and doing your cropping plan prior to harvest next year.” He said, “I promise.”

Farmers are among the biggest procrastinators in the world because for most things they do, there is no set deadline. Their entire schedule can be as flexible as they want it to be. But that philosophy often causes them to waste a lot of time doing things and thinking about things that don’t make them money. They need to be thinking of ways to increase profits, even when they’re sitting in a machine or hauling grain. The ONLY time a farmer is making money is when he is putting together he only source for making money and that is his cropping plan. That is when he is paid the most for his time but spends the least amount of time doing it.

It was a lesson this farmer learned and will never forget.  He didn't have a goal for his business, therefore; he had no plan for his business which also means he had no profit plan for his business.  Farmers waste a lot of hours doing nonproductive thinking and he is a master at pulling seed reps into those time-wasting conversations. Talking about the markets, the weather, products, technologies and other things that don’t generate profit wastes your time and his. Once again, the only time a farmer is increasing profit is when he is putting his profit plan(cropping plan) together for the next year.

All of the other hours, days, weeks, months and years are wasted with non-productive thinking. When you plan in advance, whether for a trip or how to increase sales, you will be successful beyond belief because you devoted your time to the only thing that generates the revenue in your business.

 

Happy Selling,

Rod Osthus