SeedSeller Academy

When You Have a Sales Goal, Facts Don't Count [Academy]

Facts Don’t Count!

This is the time of year when many sales reps are asking themselves what happened to what they originally hoped would be a great sales year.

A lot of sales goals that were set a year ago aren’t materializing into actual sales as harvest season fast approaches. Low commodity prices, rising costs and adverse weather conditions in many areas postponed planting or even prevented it entirely. Many growers have delayed making decisions which has caused reps to give up trying to get early orders.

Those are some of the facts about this year’s selling environment.

Here are a few more.

1. Virtually every person in the world has an opinion on seed because it affects what they eat, the fuel they put in their car and the clothes they wear. So they feel they have a say in how it’s raised, which, believe it or not, impacts farmers’ attitudes.
2. Both companies and farmers continue to consolidate giving us fewer potential buyers while increasing competition.
3. The average age of farmers is getting younger. They’re more technical, more price driven and are always looking for something other than what their fathers did.
4. Many banks now have a CRO (Chief Risk Officer) who determines much of a farm’s borrowing and buying power forcing limits on what some farmers can spend on inputs.

Those are some of the facts and you can’t change them, they’re facts. But when you let facts control you, you can’t achieve your goals. Everyone faces the same facts, the only difference between success and failure is how sellers deal with those facts. The key to success is to ignore the facts, because when you have a dream goal, facts cannot count.

When you ignore the facts, you put yourself in total control of your destiny, not the facts and let your inner-self control you.  You don’t base your strategies on the outside world.   

In 1977 I became the first employee of a newly formed seed company started by 6 owners. They didn’t have enough money to start this new company, that was a fact. They only had $72,000 between the 6 of them but needed more than a million. They convinced an experienced seedsman to produce the seed on a handshake and a promise to pay when we got paid for the sale of that seed. We didn’t have any unique products, offering only varieties that were available on the open market, the same pedigrees everyone else was selling, that was a fact. We had no customers or dealers who had ever planted a bag of our seed.

That was a fact. But none of those facts held us back. In a few short years our new company became one of the most dominant regional seed companies in our market area. The facts said we didn’t have what was needed to start and grow a seed company but we ignored the facts and did it anyway. We succeeded.

Top seed sellers know there’s only one solution to the challenges they face in today’s marketplace and that is to ignore the facts. They know that regardless of the so-called facts of the marketplace, those facts can’t hold them back from getting their share of the business if they simply ignore them and do the things they need to do to achieve their goals. They know that most of their competitors will be controlled by the facts, which leaves the marketplace wide open for them. Top sellers know the antidote for facts is innovative thinking.

When markets are down they show prospects and customers how to make up for it by focusing on increasing yields by following the Top 5 Factors. When input costs are up they focus on demonstrating the extra value they get from planning earlier and taking advantage of early discounts. To avoid inclement weather being a challenge they teach growers how to protect themselves from the 1000 variables.

Every selling season will have it’s “facts” that will serve as sales blockers for those who aren’t innovative thinkers. Just remember, that old saying, “When you have a dream, facts don’t count.”  Decide how committed you are to achieving your goals and ignore “facts” that will keep everyone else from being successful except you.

Every day, “facts” keep salespeople from achieving their goals, don’t let it happen to you.   

Happy Selling,

Rod Osthus

 

Are You Crowd Sourcing Ideas [Academy]

Are You Crowd Sourcing Your Ideas?

Over the years crowd sourcing has been an effective way of helping individuals or businesses raise money to help them meet financial needs. The strategy involves asking people all over the world for monetary donations so those in need can get back on their feet after a big loss. 

But crowd sourcing isn’t new. It’s been a popular and effective strategy for the past 50 years in the seed business too, but not just for financial reasons. The crowd sourcing I’m talking about is centered around obtaining marketing ideas from the crowd of other companies in the industry, including competitors on how to sell more seed. Virtually every company would keep their eyes on competitors to see how they marketed their seed.

If a competitor’s strategy was successful, they would then plan to use that same marketing strategy the next year. These investigations went all the way from marketing programs to how much other companies were going to charge farmers for their seed. 

Crowd sourcing to get new ideas helped a lot of seed companies stay in business over the years, and not just the ones that didn’t have their own marketing departments. As a seed company prepared for a new sales year, it would look at what other companies were doing and borrow their ideas. There were years, for example, when virtually every company was offering free trips to customers if they bought a certain amount of seed. In other years almost every company offered a unit of seed free for every unit they purchased.

Companies used tools, household appliances, pickup trucks, farm tractors, grain bins and more to get farmers to buy their seed. Borrowing ideas from competitors, which today would have been called, “pilfering” or stealing, was the primary way many companies came up with their marketing strategies. Very few had their own unique ways of going to market.

Unfortunately, crowd sourcing ideas has not stopped or even slowed within the seed industry. Companies continue to do it, in fact, they’re recycling old ideas, many of which no longer work. It’s as if they’ve run out of ideas so they reuse old ones. But farmers have caught on and decided to create their own incentives for buying. They’ve decided that since all companies look, act, and sound the same, they must all be the same. The only difference has to be the price their asking for their products. As a result farmers are turning seed buying into a commodity transaction based only on who has the cheapest price. 

But my ideas for increasing seed sales over the past 30 years weren’t crowd sourced at all. I developed them myself through the school of hard knocks and from years of face-to-face contact with farmers. I quickly recognized what farmers needed and wanted and it wasn’t a program or a cheap price. They wanted someone to help them raise yields. If they raised more yield they could buy their own trips and their own tractors with the extra profit. My idea was simple, teach farmers how to follow new, innovative ways of raising a top crop so they can increase production and profit and will want to buy more seed from your company the next year. 

Do you hear a lot of companies talking about the Top 5 Factors to Producing a Top crop, the 1000 Variables, the one variety per field concept or stop using test plots? Of course you don’t because they either don’t know about those concepts or don’t care to execute them because it would require changing how both their salesforce and their customers think and that would require effort. 

The one idea farmers are searching for every year is how to increase yields so they can increase profit, but they’re having a hard time finding it? It should be available from a crowd of companies offering those kinds of values, but no one is using that strategy. So if you’re looking to get new ideas on how to sell more seed in the future, crowd sourcing won’t help you. The crowd is out of ideas.  

But if you’re willing to try an old idea I developed 30 years ago that works year after year and never wears out, teach your growers how to achieve the highest yields. Show them it’s not about products, prices, or programs, but only about their own expertise in getting the most out of every variety they plant. They need to learn the only way to make more money is to produce more yield and to do that they need to change how they farm. 

Just so you know, you may find one or two companies using my ideas on how to help farmers increase yields and profit. But don’t depend on them sharing those ideas with you. They’re having too much fun selling seed.

Happy Selling,

Rod

The No. 2 Weakness of Salespeople

The No.2 Weakness of Salespeople

What do you expect from every person you take on as a customer? Notice I said expect, not want. There’s a big difference. We all want customers to be loyal, buy our products, follow our lead, do what we suggest and so on. But when it comes to expectations, what do you expect from people you sell to? The answer is commitment.

I expect every one of my customers to be 100% committed to me, and my company the day they become a customer. Truth be known, 90% of all new prospects are not committed at all. They have no expectations of themselves of being loyal as a new customer because they weren’t given any expectations when they signed their first order.

They’re just in the “trial” stage, waiting to see if the company they just bought from is going to deliver what THEY EXPECT. 

There’s only one way to get real commitment from new prospects that will quickly lead them to becoming true customers and that’s by doing what most salespeople are not good at and afraid to do, set expectations to be a customer the first day they meet them. Remember true customers are buying more than 51% of their needs from you. They’re on your side, buying more from you than they are from your competition. True customers are your sales force, they defend you against competitors and are 100% committed to supporting you and your company. They developed expectations for themselves to do everything they can to help make your company successful.

Salespeople are afraid to set expectations and ask for commitment in fear of scaring prospects away. But clearly verbalizing expectations before selling new prospects helps you figure out where prospects stand and how committed they are to becoming one of your customers. If they aren’t committed on day one of signing, they’re unlikely to be more committed later on or become great customers. 

I’ve never met a prospect who knew what my expectations were to become a customer. They may think they know based on their experience with other companies, but I guarantee expectations to be a customer for our company are a lot greater than the expectations of any of my competitors. 

Laying out expectations that require customers to commit is asking them to make you a priority. It creates an understanding of the obligation between you and your customers that provides purpose and a pledge they need to uphold. In addition, setting expectations and verbalizing them will eliminate surprises and keep things from going wrong later on. It allows you to control the outcome and the success of both you and your customer. 

People who are committed to a cause cooperate at a higher level, try harder, look for innovative solutions when faced with obstacles, don't consider quitting to be an option, are persistent and always extremely resilient. 

Taking commitment seriously and following through sets a positive example for others who come on board with you.   

To learn how to get prospects and customers truly committed, watch the screen cast titled, “How to Overcome the No.2 Weakness of Salespeople.”

Happy Selling,

Rod Osthus

Access All Available Brains [Academy]

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

 

Repeat Yourself [Academy]

Repeat Yourself.

Someone once said, Repetition is the mother of learning and the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.  

When I grew up, we had farms in two different locations, what we called the home farm and the other the north farm. The land was four miles apart. To get to the north farm and into some of the fields we needed to cross railroad tracks several times.  A Rock Island Rode Train track ran alongside a Milwaukee Road Train track. That meant when you crossed one, in just a few feet you were going to cross the other. The Rock Island train ran only once a day but you never knew when or from which direction it was coming. The Milwaukee train ran several times a day and at high speeds. Ever since I can remember, my dad would tell me every time we crossed those tracks to look both ways, twice. By the time I was seven years old and driving tractors in the field I often crossed those tracks pulling equipment following my dad to that northern farm and back again. All I had in my brain during each trip was “look both ways twice.” He repeated it so many times, I find myself saying the same thing at every intersection and train crossing to my kids and grandkids today, l”ook both ways twice.”

Two of our fields on the north farm were separated only by the two railroad tracks running side by side between the fields. To get from one field to the other we had to cross both tracks with our equipment. In those days one of the implements I  used a lot was a spike tooth harrow we called a drag. It was a 30-foot-wide piece of equipment used to smooth a field after planting. We didn’t have a drag cart to fold the drag and lift it off the ground so we just drug it out of the field and across the tracks. But crossing the Rock Island track was tricky because the rails set higher off the ground and part of the drag would sometimes get caught on the rails as I crossed.  I would stop quickly, jump off the tractor and release it from the track, it often required me to do it several times before I got completely across.

It was a nervous time because I never knew when a train might come.  

Studies show that repetition makes learning stick. To remember information over the long term the learner must be exposed to the information multiple times and repeatedly practice recalling or retrieving that information.

So to enable the retention of knowledge, repetition is still one of the most effective ways to attain greater permanency of learning.  

What kinds of things have you been telling your customers over and over so they learn it and remember it? Have you been repeatedly telling them about the benefits of early planning, doing their field by variety cropping plans prior to harvest? How many times have you told them about the benefits yet some still don’t get it and want to delay planning and ordering.

Have you been telling customers about the Top 5 Factors so much that they can not only repeat them back to you, but also tell you the benefits of each one? Have they told you after numerous reminders that the Top 5 Factors are their job description, what their job is when raising a crop? 

Have you been so repetitive in the values you bring to your customers that they can repeat them at will, especially when confronted by competitors trying to sell them something?

If none of those things are happening then you need to start repeating yourself. How many times have you told your kids the same thing but they didn’t hear it or do it? It takes repetition to sink in sometimes and change behaviors.

Studies have shown that the brain forms new pathways when a task is repeated often, thereby optimizing the performance of the skill.

Repeating the same message in both written and verbal form is an essential part of an effective communication strategy. When you repeat key points, you reinforce them in the minds of your customers, making it more likely they will remember and understand the message. Repeating simple words and phrases convinces them they’re true.

Repetition is key to achieving fluency and mastery in any field. By repeating tasks or exercises customers become more comfortable and efficient, leading to increased implementation of what you are teaching. Continuous repetition helps internalize knowledge or skills to the point where they become second nature.

Do you want to know if your customers are learning and remembering the values you’re bringing and telling them about?

Listen to what they say during conversations with you. Are they feeding your words and phrases back to you? If not, start repeating yourself and watch sales increases start to repeat themselves too.

Happy Selling, 
Rod

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

Time to Re-Read the “Three Little Pigs"

It’s Time to Re-Read  the “Three Little Pigs”

Someone once said, You must have every sales rep living in a belief house made of brick so they can withstand the attacks that are to come.  

If I were to assign a training manual for managers to use to help prepare their field sellers for the selling season it would be The Three Little Pigs.  You know, the story where the first little pig built his house out of straw and the wolf blew it down with a gentle puff and ate the pig. The second little pig built his house out of sticks but the wolf gave a few extra strong puffs, blew the house down and ate the pig. But the third little pig built his house out of brick and no matter how hard the wolf blew, he couldn’t knock it down.

It was just too strong.

And because the third little pig’s house was so strong, he didn’t have to worry about it falling down so he had time to think about his next counter move because he knew the wolf wouldn’t give up.

This meant that when the wolf climbed onto the roof and down the chimney to get inside the house, the pig didn’t panic. He had already placed a pot of water in the fireplace, got it boiling and let the wolf fall into it. Because he was protected by his strong house, he was able to make decisions that took care of his competition.

The strength of the houses built by each pig is analogous to the strength of every salesperson’s belief system. The stronger one’s belief, the easier it is to withstand attacks on that belief. If a person has a weak belief system it doesn’t take much of an obstacle to collapse that person’s belief house. They end up abandoning their original belief and take on someone else’s.

Our beliefs and our commitments are always being tested.

All field sellers have their belief systems tested every year. Their belief in their company, their products and their pricing are tested to the max. Unfortunately some have beliefs that are as weak as the straw house and the stick house and it doesn’t take much for a competitor or an objecting customer to get those reps to abandon their principles and give in to customer demands. In fact, salespeople with belief houses built of straw or sticks always retreat when the selling gets tough, losing any opportunity of getting a sale.       

Those who have beliefs as strong as brick houses don’t let big bad competitors get to them. They may not win every battle, but they stand fast and protect their company, their products and their margins at all cost. They survive relentless attacks. However, even those with brick house beliefs don’t remain totally unscathed. The foundations of many brick belief houses can be cracked during a difficult sales year. 

Years ago I had a very good dealer who unknowingly had the foundation of his brick strong belief cracked by a competitor. This dealer farmed, raised hogs and had a growing seed business. The company was not only his largest competitor, but also had more market share than any other company in the business. The sales rep for the large competitor was on the bowling team with my dealer. One evening when the team was bowling the competitor told my dealer about the program they had for new customers. He said was giving 3 units of free seed to new prospects and they didn’t have to buy anything thing to get. It was a promotional effort to get to new customers. The very next day the competitive sales rep stopped by and gave my dealer three units of seed free.

A few days later I stopped to see my dealer and when I walked into his warehouse I saw three units of Brand X seed staked in the warehouse. I said to the dealer, “What’s that seed for? He said, “Oh my neighbor sells for Brand X. They have a free seed program to get new customers and he gave three units to me.” I said, why do you think he gave you that seed?” He said, “He wants me to start planting Brand X.” I said, “Are you going to plant it?” He said, “I might as well, it’s free.” I said, “The reason he gave you that seed was so he could say to all of your customers, “Sam doesn’t even plant the seed he sells, he plants Brand X. If you plant that seed he will crack your belief foundation and the belief foundation of all of your customers.”  He sent the seed back and didn’t plant it.

When you’re repeatedly attacked by companies who have no values to sell (or don’t know how to sell them if they do have them) and you’re constantly battling the attitudes of companies who think the only way to sell is to lower price or give product away. When you’re under attack from so many directions at once it often seems you’re the only one trying to do the right thing. This is how belief systems are damaged.  You begin to question whether or not your values are real.      

The bottom line is you’d better check your belief system and the belief system of your sales reps. Find out which ones no longer have a belief house to live in because they’ve lost their belief during an attack. Find out which ones have cracks in their brick foundations so you can patch them up immediately. You need to make sure every field seller has a strong, sturdy “belief house” to live in so they can weather the storm that’s going to come again and again. Too many field sellers are running scared because they don’t believe their company is as good as it needs to be.

That thought process is total hogwash.

There’s no company that can’t compete successfully in this marketplace IF they are willing to do the things they need to do. But you must have a belief house made of brick that will withstand the attacks that come. The last thing you want to find out is that some of your field sales rep’s belief houses have been blown down and they are now living with the neighbors, your competitors. 

Happy Selling, I’m, Rod Osthus

Get Farmers in the Mood to Buy [Academy]

Get Rid of Bias, Immediately! [Academy]

Get Rid of Bias, Immediately!

Successful selling is about believing in yourself, your company, and your products. 

We’ve whipped that horse plenty in the past by touting belief as the No.1 factor to success in every business.  However, instead of talking about the importance of belief itself, I’m going to address a very damaging, negative effect that comes from a customer’s lack of belief in your company and lack of belief in the varieties they buy from you that can prevent any possibility of keeping a customer long-term. It’s called bias. Total belief has to be in place when farmers buy from you otherwise your future with them is pre-determined and that usually means short-term.   

Bias means lack of belief in you and your company. 

It’s means customers believe other companies’ products and services are better than yours. They believe you’re missing something, flawed in some way, not up to par. Even though most biases are unfounded, until proven otherwise they can be a real sales stopper.

When you’re new to a grower’s farm, prejudice, also called bias, is automatically created in the buyer’s mind.  They’re skeptical since they’ve already spent years learning to trust their current suppliers, so how could they be expected to trust you when you haven’t proven yourself. But every buyer, new or not, must begin the year with an open mind, free of prejudice against your company if they’re going to be successful using your products.  If they don’t start with an open mind, you have no chance of winning even if your products perform well on their farm. They will want you to lose no matter how good you are. 

Since seed supplies their entire livelihood, customers don’t separate performance of the products they plant from the perceptions of the company they bought them from. Both are based on total trust and belief.  In customers’ minds they go hand in hand. They won’t buy a top performing product from a company they don’t like or trust. This is where the seller comes in.  If you want your customers’ minds to be free of bias and have the correct thoughts, you have to place those thoughts in their minds yourself.  That means showing and telling your customers what sets you apart from others. Then make that story even more effective by taking them to the field and showing them how you raise yields on farmers’ farms.

Next, import growers to your office, facility or show plot location to further demonstrate those differences. Explain how you ask growers where they want to take their yields and how you help them get there. The key is using sincere eye contact, having a positive attitude toward the company you work for and demonstrating your support for EVERYTHING your company does and represents.   

Company and varietal bias are the most dangerous thoughts growers can place in their minds when doing business with you. But prejudice is not exclusive to first time buyers. Even your most loyal customers can end up with some level of bias against certain varieties, or they can create bias against you or your company if they feel ignored. If you don’t remove all bias, customers will carry it all year and may even find themselves discriminating against you by talking bad about you to others.  

Make sure you replace any biases your customers may have against your company and your varieties as early as possible into the new growing season. Don’t allow them to go through the entire season with perceptions lower than your best competitors.

Remember, if you want to know what you’re not teaching, look at your students. They will tell you what you haven’t been putting into their minds. Be prepared because some of what they’ll tell you may not be to your liking. The key is to teach your customers to think like you, talk like you and act like you. You can tell if they have bias or not just by listening to what they say and watching what they do.

And once your growers are bias free and start thinking like you, geometric sales increases will follow. That’s because their bias has been shifted to your competitors where it belongs,

Happy Selling,

Rod