Dress For the Part You Want to Play! [Academy]

Dress For the Part You Want to Play!

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” —Aristotle

What role do you intend to play in the eyes of farmer customers?

Do you want to be their go to person, their problem-solver, their answer person, the professional who leads them to new places, the bringer of real value to their operations or just their input supplier?

Do you want to be the one they put the most trust in and, as a result, does the most business with because you’re the leader they follow?  

When I ask those questions to seed sellers, they all say “yes”, I want to be a lot more than their input supplier. But few of those reps are willing to take the important steps to making themselves leaders in the eyes of their customers. They don’t want to fully play role of being a leader. They think they can get by without executing every step that creates leaders the easiest and fastest way.  

The number one pushback I get during my training sessions from reps who call on farmers is about how to dress. They don’t want to dress like leaders dress and is better than their customers and competitors. Their biggest objection is fear of what their customers will say when they show up dressed better than the farmers themselves. 

So many salespeople have been told or have read books that say you’re supposed to dress like your customers. That may be true when call on executives but is sure isn’t true when calling on farmers. If you dress like your farmer customers you’ll look like his farm hand or at best an agronomist. Agronomists can’t sell, I know because I was one,

Most salespeople don’t understand or admit to the power appearance on how prospects and customers perceive sales reps who call on them. What they understand even less is how much power dressing up gives them over competitors and their sales reps.   

If two people walk into a room together, one wearing a plaid shirt and blue jeans and the other a sport coat, button down shirt and slacks, which do you perceive is the boss? The one that is better dressed of course. When you dress up, you’re perceived as being smart, a leader, someone different, and someone who cares about their appearance and shows respect for the meeting you’re about to have with the grower. You’re treated differently and, most of all, you act differently. When you dress up, the expectations you have for yourself go up—therefore, you come to the meeting in a better state of mind and better prepared.  

Stop playing the role of the agronomist or seed advisor. Play the role of the leader.

The most important skill that made selling easier and got me larger orders was dressing up. It’s a skill that is learned. It’s the foundation for all other skills that allows you to reach your potential. 

Go ahead and do it, you’ll find it much easier to sell because most of your competitors refuse to look and act like the leaders they claim to be. You want to set yourself apart from everyone else, it starts with what prospects see and feel the first time they meet you. For customers, the more you require of yourself the stronger the relationship becomes. They will notice. They may not tell you but they will convince themselves and that’s the number one goal, getting them to totally buy you. Because when they totally buy into your they also buy totally from you.

Happy Selling,

Rod Osthus