What Do You Advertise on a Sales Call [Academy]

“What Do You Advertise On a Sales Call?”

The favorite topic most seed sellers talk about on sales calls is their varieties and how great they are. They carry with them an arsenal of data to show prospects and customers that they can not only hold their own against the competition, but they can also make them more money.

Since product parity between seed varieties has gotten so high, the real increases in yield have not come from genetics along, but more so from how farmers manage the genetics they plant. Farmers who produce the highest yields do things that allow the genetics of varieties to produce to their potential. They simply do a better job of protecting the genetic package they plant from the thousand variables that can interfere with genetic expression. So many producers don’t get half of the genetic potential out of the varieties they plant because they don’t protect that living breathing organism.

If the key is not the variety but how farmers manage genetics, why are salespeople and their companies advertising their varieties and trying to sell them using their brand name? What difference does it make to a farmer if he plants variety A from company ABC or variety X from company XYZ? What farmers really need to do to be successful is plant SEED and manage it properly. When you see or hear the advertising slogan, “Got Milk?” Do you think of a certain brand of milk like Fairlife, Shamrock, Land O’Lakes and so on? No, you think of milk and the benefits of drinking milk. When you see or hear the advertising slogan, “Where’s the Beef?” Do you think of a certain breed of animal like Herford, Angus and so on? No, you think of beef and how delicious it is.  When you see or hear the add, “the other white meat”, you don’t think of Hampshire, Duroc, Chester White or Berkshire? You think of pork and how healthy and delicious it is. Industries are advertising milk, beef and pork, not any one brand. They want producers to do the best job of producing as much of milk, beef and pork as possible.

In the same say, farmers shouldn’t be thinking about a brand or particular variety when buying seed. They need be thinking seed and how they will make that seed produce to its full potential. Seed needs to be their brand just as milk is the brand, beef is the brand and pork is the brand. 

21st century seed sellers should be focusing their customers on the Top 5 Factors to produce a top crop with the seed they plant, not the variety. They need to be excited about how to grow and manage the seed they plant so it produces to its highest potential, regardless of the variety. When farmers are sold on buying specific varieties they’re pulled away from thinking what THEY need to do to raise the best crop possible and into the thinking that the variety itself can do the job.  This is the reason farmers are so focused on comparing different varieties to each other in plots and side by sides rather than analyzing what THEY are doing to make the seed they plant produce to its potential.

The other thing this strategy does, is pull the customer closer to the sales rep, enhancing the relationship and increasing the value of the rep in the eyes of the customer.

Varieties don’t get you on the farm and keep you there, YOU DO.

Stop trying to have your varieties be the winner. Stop talking about your products and instead, get customers focused on doing the best they can to allow the genetic potential of the seed they plant produce to its potential. It will make YOU the hero and give you the freedom to develop a plan for every grower on how maximize yields and profit. You will make all of the decisions when choosing the varieties you want customers to plant instead of growers trying to select the ones that did the beset last year. You success will skyrocket which means your sales will too.

Happy Selling, Rod Osthus