SeedSeller Academy

Are Your Customers Prepared to Raise the Best Crop [Academy]

How many of your customers realize the importance of this year’s planting season?

Do they know it’s the most important planting season of their entire career? It’s the next, single, biggest opportunity they will ever have to counter all of the marketplace challenges they’re facing, especially rising input costs and variable market prices? They have one opportunity to conquer their challenges by producing as many bushels as possible. In fact, farmers need to focus on growing record yields if they’re going to make it easier to stay in the game.

But do they KNOW they need to do it?

Too many growers don’t have raising a top crop foremost in their minds as their way to make more money. Instead, they’ve been focusing on saving money, lowering input costs, and getting deals. That’s because many suppliers have led this line of backward thinking and have gotten growers to follow. But what kind of impact would an extra 35 bushels per acre have on profits? If a farmer took his average corn yield from 200 to 235 by increasing his bushels per 1000 plants in his 35,000 plant stand by just 1, he would gain that extra 35 bushels per acre without changing anything except how he planted his crop. At $4 per bushel on a 1000 acres of corn a grower would take in an extra $140 per acre and a total of $140,000 extra.  

If your customers are planting right now, I hope you have them focused on following the Top 5 Factors to Produce a Top Crop. Especially numbers 1, 2 and 4. Soil conditions at planting, seed placement and planting the right variety in the right field. Getting them to focus on following the Top 5 Factors will remind them that 100% of their yield is determined when they plant. That means planting in perfect soil conditions, placing the seed perfectly and planting each variety in the right field are critical. That’s why planting in as perfect conditions as possible, in the right field are essential regardless of the date on the calendar. They need to know that early planting is NOT the secret to high yields but perfect planting in the right field IS the key. 

If your customers are done planting and the crop is growing, have you been monitoring the progress of the varieties you sold them? Are you focusing them on factor number 5, post planting management, that is, what they are doing and are going to do to protect the crop throughout the season?  

It’s essential to do the best job planting the crop as possible, but even with a perfect stand and highest bushels per 1000 established at planting, if the crop is not nurtured throughout the season and protected from the 1000 variables, perfect planting won’t have the kind of impact it could have. 

Don’t let your customers get caught up on input costs and miss the most important opportunity they will have this year, to produce the best crop possible. They will get once chance to attack this market and take control of their expenses by taking control of their income and that is how many bushels they raise. And don’t let the weather interfere. You know it’s the really healthy crops that withstand all effects of weather the best. And if they do things right they will be able to pay down debt, expand their operations, bring a son into the business, become debt free and even retire early. This is one of the most important planting seasons farmers will ever have because it’s the NEXT ONE.

Happy Selling,

Rod 

Don’t Try This At Home [Academy]

Years ago, it wasn’t unusual to hear about people getting hurt or even killed when they tried to replicate stunts at home they saw someone do on television. Then years later tv shows like Ridiculousness and movies like Jackass, made doing crazy stunts at home look fun, challenging, and romantic. It created a major acceleration in both dangerous activities and injuries when stunts on both of those shows were done by amateurs at someone’s home. 

So to keep from getting sued, companies started adding disclaimers to their programs clearly stating, “Don’t Try This At Home” or in the case of car stunts they would show a statement that said, Professional Driver, or Professional Driver on Controlled Course. It’s only because so many people have no common sense, who are showing off or under the influence that kind they need that kind of advice.

But believe it or not, seed sellers sometimes need to be given disclaimers too and reminded of things they should not be doing at home so they don’t hurt themselves. You’re probably asking yourself, what could seed sales reps possibly do at home that could injure them and their ability to get sales?

It all starts with where their mind is located, not their body. That’s right, the exact location of their mind determines whether or not seed sellers will sustain injuries that affect their success . Did you know 75% of all seed sales reps are hurt or severely injured mentally before they ever leave their office to make sales calls? And in the case of prospecting, that injury rate is close to 100%. 

Here’s the problem. Whether prospecting or calling on current customers, too much time is spent thinking about making sales calls when doing totally different, unrelated activities while still at home. If sales reps happen to farm for example, they’re often busy cleaning the machine shed, working on machinery, doing field work and other jobs around the farm. When doing things unrelated to making sales calls while thinking about selling may seem harmless, it actually lulls them into believing they’re prepared for those calls just by thinking about them. But by the time they force themselves to hit the road, their desire, and their ability to execute properly are injured to the point of being ineffective. That’s because they tried to prepare for sales calls in the sales territory while their brain was at home working on other things. When preparing to make sales calls you can physically be at home, but you can’t be doing other work when your mind is supposed to be focused on the road, practicing how to be in front of prospects and customers. You need to be practicing and role playing the call with a business associate, spouse, or partner and your mind needs to be present during that practice.

Top sellers must be prepared and know what to say when they’re out on the road if a prospect or customer brings up markets for example. But if they listen to the markets while at home prior to making sales calls, they’re badly injured mentally and more likely to get into price fights or lose their enthusiasm for making calls all together when markets are down. Seed sales reps can never listen to markets at home without being severely injured or handicapped when it’s time to make sales calls.  

Another thing seed sellers should never do at home is think about test plots or study their products. They injure their ability to think about placing the right varieties in the right fields for customers. They also hurt themselves by thinking about last year’s results, regardless of whether they were good or bad. Instead, they should be using the information gathered on the combine rides they did with customers and be focused on the goals they set based on the bushels per 1000 plant goal for each of the field they visited when on the combine.

So many sales reps have their sales either injured or killed by doing things they should not be doing at home.  

Do you want your sales to go up? Get your mind out of the house, off the farm and into the street where it can’t be hurt. Keep your mind focused on prospects and customers who will test your skills and keep you sharp. Force yourself to wake up and see what a dangerous thing training your mind at home can be when your physically involved doing something else. And stop watching Ridiculousness or Jackass, it will only get you in the mood to do something stupid that could injure your mind and body permanently. After all, there are already plenty of sales rep acting like the people in those shows. Lord knows farmers don’t need anymore.

Happy Selling,

Rod  

Are You Doing Things Right, or Doing the Right Things? [Academy]

Are You Doing Things Right, or Doing the Right Things?

Most people who want to be successful in business or in life focus on doing things right. Doing things right is about following certain rules and procedures that ensure things go smoothly so goals can be achieved without a lot of interference.

I grew up on a farm with a father who said there was only one way to do things and that was the right way. He would say anyone can do them wrong or hap hazardly, but when you do them right you achieve the outcome you’re looking for.   

My dad was a tactical thinker, the kind of person who focused on doing things right all of the time.

He knew if he didn’t do a task right, it would negatively impact his entire tactical plan. But he was also a strategic thinker, concerned about doing the right things so he could achieve his long-term goal. Dad also said you can do something “right,” but if it’s the wrong thing to do, all of your hard work is wasted and the outcome will not be what you wanted.

He said, if you do the “right thing,” but do it wrong, you won’t get the results you want either. My dad seems smarter to me now than when I was growing up on the farm as a teenager, working alongside him.

Funny how that works.

As seed sellers, you need to be more concerned with doing the right things than just following certain rules and procedures so you can do things right. The ag marketplace changes so fast that if you’re focused only on doing things right you can quickly find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong things right. 

For example, one day I had a sales rep tell me he had a customer who runs a very valid, replicated test plot system on his farm. He said the plot covers 40 acres, contains more than 30 varieties from a dozen different companies and goes the entire length of the field. He said each variety is planted twice in the plot and that the plot is so valid other farmers in the area look to it as a guide for what to plant and he uses it to select the varieties to plant on his farm the next year. The sales rep believes that customer has a valid test plot but it’s not. This is a prime example of not doing things right while not doing the right thing. 

First of all, doing a test plot right would mean replicating the varieties in the plot at least three times, planting that exact same plot at three different locations on the farm, the same year and planting that same plot with the same varieties three years in a row. He is not doing it right, NOR is he doing the right thing by relying on a test plot to choose varieties to plant. That’s because every year is different, affecting every variety differently because the same environment will never to be repeated from year to year. Unless all of those rules and procedures are followed, there isn’t a researcher on the planet that would validate the data that farmer is getting each year. That grower is NOT doing the right thing and what he IS doing is not being done right. 

Another example is writing orders. When you sell seed to a customer, what do you want to happen? You don’t just want the customer to plant the seed, you want the variety to perform at the top so the customer maximizes profit and wants to buy again. But it’s amazing how many seed sellers are more focused on getting and keeping an order than they are on making sure the farmer has the best performance possible from the varieties they sell. They focus on availability of their favorite variety, making sure the order will not be canceled, ensuring the seed will be delivered on time and that it will get planted and not hauled back. All of those things are done right. The problem is, that is not the right thing to do. 

If the goal is to have your variety perform at the top so the customer makes the most profit and wants to buy again, the seller needs to focus the farmer on how to raise the best crop possible, and not on the varieties he’s buying. That focus starts by doing the right thing and that is writing a cropping plan instead of an order. Writing a cropping plan instead of an order ensures every variety will be assigned to a field eliminating the need to confirm orders or worry about possible cancellations. Focusing the grower on maximizing yield also puts the grower in charge of raising that top crop instead of relying only on the variety to do it.  

Most seed sellers are focused on doing things right, not on doing the right things. To be a great leader you need to be more aware of doing the right things, rather than the procedures and processes dictated by doing things right.  

There are so many things seed sellers have learned to do right. But there is one very important thing they have not yet mastered and that is the ability to know when they need to start doing the right things. So many are stuck in the old way of doing things like using test plots, making cold calls, and getting trial size orders from first time buyers. None of those are the right things to do so no matter how hard you try you can’t do them right. 

Happy Selling,

Rod Osthus

 

Effort Trumps Intelligence [Academy]

Effort Trumps Intelligence

Dr. Lewis Terman, developer of the IQ test and SAT college entrance exam said and I quote, “The No.1 factor to success is not intelligence, it’s effort.” 

In 1921, Dr. Terman began a program he called the "Genetic Studies of Genius, a study that set out to investigate whether very young students with higher IQ’s were eventually more successful later in life than students of the same age who had lower IQ’s. What he found was that his high IQ students (which he referred to as "Termites") tended to be healthier, taller, and more socially adapted than the lower IQ kids, but not always more successful as adults.

Terman found that while many of his high IQ subjects were very successful, not all of them did that well, in fact most of them turned out to be no more successful than the students who had average IQs. He found that some of the common traits the more successful students had regardless of their IQs were self-confidence, perseverance, and goal achievement both as young children and as adults. Therefore he concluded that the No.1 factor to success was not intelligence, it was effort. 

The study is still going on today, carried out by other psychologists, and has become the longest-running study of this kind in history.

Dr. Terman’s conclusion applies to all of us who sell seed. Over the past 50 years in the seed business, I’ve worked with hundreds if not thousands of seed sellers. I’ve found no correlation between how intelligent sellers were and how successful they were selling seed. Though my study is not scientific, it comes from close observation and in many cases first-hand experience, witnessing sales results of certain reps over time. The conclusion I came to over and over was that those who put in the time and effort were the ones who sold the most seed. Not ground a ground breaking idea is it.

I found this true when interviewing and hiring dealers too. Some dealer candidates were very intelligent. You could tell from the looks of their farming operations, by what they read and how they talked they were smart people. Other prospects had sloppy operations, weren’t well spoken and much less impressive. So since I couldn’t tell who would become a successful seed dealer and who wouldn’t, I created a method of testing their willingness to put forth effort to make a dealership work. I created a few requirements that everyone had to meet if they wanted to sell seed for me. For example, if the prospective dealer was a farmer, the first requirement was he needed to plant 90% of my products on his farm the first year knowing he was already buying everything from my competition. But I knew he couldn’t be successful if he was still planting more seed from my competitor than he was from me while trying to sell my seed. After all, you can’t drive John Deere and sell Case I-H. 

The second requirement was the prospective dealer needed to sell 20 new customers his first year and third, he needed to attend a full day of new dealer training within 2 weeks after being signed. What I found was that regardless of how smart or not so smart the candidates appeared, the ones who were most successful were the ones who worked hardest to meet the requirements. Again, not rocket science but I was always surprised which ones made the cut. I had really smart, sharp farmers with beautiful facilities become stars, and others with the same backgrounds fail. I had not so impressive farmers become star dealers and others who failed. The strategy worked. The ones who put forth the effort succeeded. 

As a seed seller, you already know the primary reason you’re successful and the primary reason you aren’t having greater success. It’s lack of effort on your part. The more time and effort you put into selling, the more you sell. 

Where do you need to apply more effort selling seed this year. Where have you been slacking off? How much more could you sell if you put forth more effort and how much effort would it really take to sell more? 

Over the years I’ve shown salespeople that increasing sales effort by just 10%, increases sales 70-80%. That’s a pretty good return on investment. So let me take a guess. The one thing you want to invest more time and effort in is getting more new customers. In other words, you need to put more effort into prospecting, spending more time growing your customer base. I know that because almost every seed seller needs to spend more time prospecting. Unless every farmer in your territory is planting 100% of your seed, you never run out of prospects. That’s because there are two kinds of prospects, people who have never bought seed from you and those who are buying less than 50% of their needs from you, we call non-customers. 

I know you are all intelligent because you can’t be in this marketplace today if you’re not. I also know, the only thing you lack is more effort. Put in extra effort this year and watch your sales soar. Remember, just 10% more effort which is only two days a month will return a 70-80% increase in sales. That’s a great return on your investment.

Happy Selling,

Rod 

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

How to Think About Sales [Academy]

I find that many people, including salespeople don’t know how to think about sales and what it really means to sell something. We already know the distorted view many people have of sales in general based on their negative response when asked if they would ever be a salesperson. 

Those same people are still hanging onto an outdated view that salespeople are fast talkers who pressure prospective buyers into purchasing something they really don’t want. If you don’t believe me, attend a trade show, and check out the percent of people who walk down the middle of the isles to avoid contact with the reps in booths on either side of them. They stay far enough away and walk fast enough so they can avoid being approached by those reps. So many people are afraid of being SOLD something, That’s because they have the wrong perception of what selling is.

If you look up the definition for selling it says sales is the process of persuading a person or organization to buy something. That definition is outdated. True selling has less to do with persuading and a lot more to do with being so attractive to potential buyers they WANT to buy what the rep is offering. If you don’t understand that successful selling is about trust in the seller and not the products or services, selling seed to farmers will be hard.

So what is sales, really?

Selling is creating trust between the seller and the potential buyer. It doesn’t matter if the offer is being done in person or on-line, a level of trust has to emerge within the buyer to risk making the investment.

When you’re calling on farmers to sell them something as important as seed, the last thing you want to do is persuade them into buying it. That important decision needs to be their own, based on their TRUST and belief in the salesperson.  

Building trust starts with the potential buyer’s initial impression of the seller. A sales rep gets one opportunity to make a good first impression, but plenty of chances to screw that one up later. The first meeting between the seller and the prospect must impress the prospect. The first thing the farmer sees when a seller drives into his yard is imprinted on the prospect’s mind. Once that happens, it can takes a lot to change that impression, especially if it’s initially a bad one. But GOOD first impression can also change to a bad one very quickly if the seller is poorly dressed, disorganized or wastes the farmer’s time. 

The first impression starts with the vehicle the seller is driving. The vehicle MUST be clean, inside, and out. It’s the salesperson’s office so it MUST be organized and well kept. Next, the sales rep MUST be better dressed than the farmer, not by a little, but by a lot. The rep needs to look successful, be clean, and professional. It goes without saying that what happens next makes or breaks the relationship that needs to be developed before a sales can take place. The sales story is everything. That’s why the rep needs to know HOW the call with start, WHAT will be talked about during the call and HOW the call will end before the call is made. That means role play practice and lots of it. This is the point, however, where the bad perceptions salespeople have are created.

So many sales reps skip the practice part and stumble during the actual call when the farmer takes control of the conversation. Every student I’ve ever had would tell me how much they needed new customers, but almost none of them put in the time to prepare for the call, especially the practice part.

How do YOU think about sales?

Do you know how new prospects perceive you when they meet you for the first time? I’ll bet your vehicle is clean and you’re dressed pretty well.  Those are the easy things to do. But I’ll also bet your sales story is the weakest part of your entire sales approach. I’ll bet you’re not as confident in your sales story as you need to be and in your ability to impress farmers when you meet them for the first time. Think about that. You may want to change how you think about sales.

Happy Selling, 

Rod

How Strong Are You? [Academy]

How Strong Are You?

In her excellent book, “Forever Strong”, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon says, “When you go to the doctor for almost any reason, one question the doctor should always ask is, How Strong Are You?”

I’ve never had any doctor ask me that question or heard of anyone else being asked that question either.

But Dr. Lyon says, the thing that matters most when it comes to our overall heath is how much muscle we have, and most people don’t have the amount of muscle they need to live a long, healthy life.

She says most people don’t have a weight problem; they have a “muscle” problem.

One of the first things the nurse does when I go to a doctor’s appointment, before I ever see the doctor is check my height and weight. With all of the latest technologies available today it would be easy to see how strong I am in different parts of my body to see how much muscle I’m gaining or losing. Most patients wouldn’t realize the strength of their brain is being tested at the same time their muscle strength is being tested. The muscle strength readings would tell the patient how much he or she understood and believed in what they needed to be doing with their body to be their healthiest best. She says the brain is the strongest muscle in the body and needs to be worked just like any other muscle and the more the brain focuses on building muscle, the healthier the person.

The same goes for anyone who sells seed. Not only does your body need to be strong, but your seed seller brain needs to be strong too so you can face the challenging marketplace like the one we’re in this year? Do you strengthen your brain before the start of each seed selling season so it’s strong enough to face farmers who have bad attitudes due to low market prices and uncertainty on how they’re going to be able to make a profit? 

This year’s seed selling marketplace will be more challenging that ever.

With the combination of those low market prices and poor farmer attitudes every seed seller’s brain needs to be strong. Sellers need to be prepared to handle farmers’ brains that need help figuring out how they’re going to raise yields and make a profit this year. After all, increased production is the only way out of situations like this. 

I think every farmer’s brain is weak right now and not capable of deciding how to make a profit without outside help from a strong seed seller brain. There’s a lot of pressure on farmers and they need someone like a strong-minded seed sales rep to lead them down the right path so they CAN MAKE A PROFIT this coming year.

How will you strengthen your brain so you can lead farmers where they need to go? How will you know what to say, when to say it and how to say it when farmers take you Inside the Circle and talk about why you’re so high priced and reasons why they can’t make a profit? There have been podcasts with groups of farmers who say they’re just going to tell their seed guy what they will pay for seed this year and no more. That kind of attitude exists but can only be overcome with a seed seller who has an even stronger brain. You need to be able to take farmers where they don’t know they need to go so you can take them where YOU KNOW they need to go. That will require plenty of brain muscle.

Make sure you’re prepared to handle all of the farmers who believe they’re stronger than you are. Farmers ARE stronger than 90% of your competitors who are just weaklings willing to sell their seed at any price. But when farmers are confronted by you, someone who has actual solutions to their problems of how to make a profit, price will no longer be an issue. They won’t realize until it’s all over that they met their match.

Happy Selling,

Rod Osthus

 

What Do You Get From Reaching a Goal? [Academy]

How to Train [Academy]

Confucius said, “Learn as if you were not reaching your goal and as though you were scared of missing it”.

I changed one word in that quote to fit what I want to talk about today. “Train as if you were not reaching your goal and as though you were scared of missing it.” 

So what are the differences between learning and training? Learning is a broader, ongoing process that focuses on acquiring new knowledge and information that will allow you to be better prepared to do your job. Training is different. Training is actually putting that newly acquired knowledge and information to work, practicing using that knowledge on a simulated sales call, oriented toward a specific goal and designed to improve performance in a particular role or task.

But it's amazing to me how much learning is offered to most people in the seed business. Most companies “learn the hell” out of their people, especially when it comes to teaching them about their products technologies and programs. There is so much knowledge and information being given to seed sellers today that it’s hard to find a seed rep who doesn’t have the knowledge they need to be an expert in what they’re selling.

Unfortunately for farmers and for every seed company out there, there is a huge shortage of training. Too many companies call the learning sessions they hold with their seed sellers training sessions, but they aren’t training sessions at all, they’re learning sessions. Those learning sessions don’t help students APPLY what they learn. When that happens, more learning often just creates the wrong belief that since they KNOW MORE, they will be able to sell more. Yet the opposite is actually true.  

So how do I know companies don’t do enough actually training, like role play and application training? I know that because there is no real training going on. Few if any sales reps are told top role play or even placed in sessions designed just for practice. They never have the opportunity to apply that new knowledge by practicing it, putting it into play before they ever make a sales call. Role play has a negative connotation in the minds of salespeople. They’ve come to believe it’s  fake and a waste of time. Yet, those who do it, see the value and wouldn’t make a sales call without practicing first.

The single biggest shortage in the seed industry is not and has never been a shortage of product or good people. It’s a shortage of trained salespeople. Today’s seed sellers have more than enough information to lead modern day farmers where they need to go, but they don’t have the training to do it.  Training is learning new behaviors then applying those behaviors to change the behavior of others. That means knowing HOW to get farmers to want to buy.

Are you learning or training?

I bet you already have more than enough knowledge and information needed on a sales call. But I will also bet you lack the training, the practice to utilize that knowledge and information to get a sale. 98% of all seed sellers aren’t achieving their seed sales goals because they have way to much learning and not nearly enough training. Which one do you need to more of?

Happy Selling,

Rod Osthus

 

STOP Thinking So Small [Academy]

Greetings Everyone, Rod Here

 

One of the biggest challenges seed sellers face is setting valid sales goals that are commensurate with the potential sales that are available to them. 

In fact, it would surprise most seed sellers if they knew how many units of seed are actually planted in their market area and what a small percentage of that business they currently have. Very few seed sellers know those numbers.

That’s why it’s so important to set valid sales goals.

It forces reps to know the only number that really matters and that is, the potential of the territory they’re selling in.  A valid goal is not picked out of the air or based on what the rep sold the previous year. It’s based only on the actual sales potential of each product they’re selling in the territory. 

But because true potentials aren’t known, most sales goals are simply a guess and everyone guesses too low. They base the number on the imagination of the seller and what they perceive is possible based on what they’ve sold in the past. 

The seed business seems to be one of the few where sales goals are always set on the ultra-conservative side. They perceive that since farmers have gotten larger, more independent and harder to sell that sales goals and increases in average order size is harder to get.

When done right, that’s not true.

Seed sellers need to stop setting goals on what they THINK they can sell and start basing them on the sales potential of the product they’re selling in their territory. Then they need to put together plans on how to achieve those goals through new customers only. And once the sales increase is achieved from new customers only, any increase you get from current customers will be a bonus.

Stop thinking so small.

Every seed seller has more potential for growth than they can capture in a lifetime so go after it.  Set “unachievable goals”, you know, the ones other sellers laugh at because they have no idea how they would achieve those kinds of goals or reach that kind of success.  It’s all just a matter of not thinking so small.

Happy Selling,

Rod