It's Time to Feel Abnormal Again [Academy]

It’s Time to Feel Abnormal Again

One of the biggest challenges progressive seed sellers face in this marketplace is changing fast enough. Few are willing to make even small changes, let alone change their entire way of selling to match what modern-day farmers are looking for. Today’s growers want changes in how they’re sold. They’re looking for applied selling, that is, being shown how to maximize yields when using the varieties they buy. It’s no longer about looking at data or listening to a sales rep talk about how great their performance is. It’s about showing them, in their fields, on their own farms how to increase yields and profit. That selling strategy may feel abnormal, but it needs to be the normal way seed selling takes place in the future.

Change is uncomfortable and disrupts the familiar that’s why sellers are afraid of it. And if no one else is changing except you, it makes everyone around you uncomfortable, causing you to feel abnormal. Everyone gets a little nervous wondering if the “new normal” is really going to work for you.

One of the first things I tell seed sellers in my classes is, I’m going to make you feel abnormal. I’m going to ask you to do things other seed sellers don’t do or are unwilling to do. I tell them most seed sellers aren’t ready to be abnormal and embrace the feelings that come with it. Those sellers haven’t yet realized their normal is no longer meeting their needs or the needs of the farmers they sell to.

Do you consider yourself normal and are you doing the things so-called normal seed sellers do? For example:

Is it normal to just drop in unexpectedly on 21st century farmers and expect them to buy? 

Is it normal to expect that first time buyers are going to follow high yield building protocols when planting your seed?

Is it normal to try to have meaningful dialogue with a prospect or customer and get them to want to do business with you without first practicing and role playing such an important conversation.

Do you consider it normal to see customers only a couple of times a year and expect to have a meaningful relationship with them?

Is it normal to sell a farmer just one variety and hope it wins against the many other varieties he’s already planting?

Do you consider it normal to put your varieties in test plots against competitors where they’re all treated the same despite the fact each variety requires different management to perform to its potential?  

Is it normal to sell a farmer your varieties then let him plant them whenever and wherever he wants?

Is normal to compare the yield of different varieties in a single year using a yield monitor or weigh wagon?

Is it normal to give a first-time buyer free seed or accept a token order from them and expect them to buy a lot more next year?

And is it normal to let farmers order their seed after harvest and negatively impact your company’s ability to manage time, inventories and profits?

I used to do all of those things but none of them are normal anymore. So stop doing them and be the odd man out. Be the abnormal one who has all of the success. After all, the top 2% and most successful seed sellers don’t do any of the things the other 98% less successful ones do. I guess that makes that 2% group of seed sellers abnormally good at selling seed. You need to be abnormal because that’s the only way you will meet farmers’ needs.

Happy Selling,

Rod