SeedSeller Academy

Stop Changing Your Schedule In Your Mind [Academy]

Stop Changing Your Schedule in Your Mind

Do you know that during my seed selling career I was my own worst enemy? That’s right. Speaking from experience, I was the poorest planner in the world. Too often I would fly by the seat of my pants, base my daily schedule on the weather, on whatever customers wanted me to do and even how I felt on a particular day. For several years I believed because I was in agriculture it was impossible to plan ahead and follow a calendar. Something was always going to interfere and change my plans. I did what every ignorant sales rep would do, plan in my head according to what came along or needed to be done that day. My mind controlled my schedule and it wasn’t a very good system.

The problem with letting your mind do the scheduling is, nothing is ever permanent. When you don’t have a fixed plan in writing, THAT’S when the real interference takes place. I was doing it all backward. I eventually discovered that when I developed an actual calendar in advance, and followed it throughout the season, the interference was much less because I was in control of how I spent my time. I surpassed every sales goal and not by a little, but by a lot. That’s because the calendar told me what I needed to do and when I followed it, I made progress. I no longer followed the whims of my mind but a real schedule.

The other thing I learned was when I DID create a calendar, my fear of not being able to stick to it went away.  95% of the time my calendar never changed during the season, and when it DID CHANGE, it impacted only a few days out of my entire year. Hard to believe isn’t it.

But in the minds of many seed sellers it’s a much bigger problem because that’s exactly where their planning lies, in their minds, and not in writing on paper or in their computer. They have a vision like I did, that making a calendar in our business and trying to stick to it is a waste of time. They keep thinking about some crazy week, month, or year in the past when the calendar got screwed up, and it was usually due to bad weather. You’ve heard me say many times that even when the season is delayed, you never delay your plans accordingly, you stick to the original schedule...

Does What You Teach Your Customers Have Value? [Academy]

Are You Surprised When Your Training Works? [Academy]

Are You Surprised When Your Training Works?

After teaching thousands of seed sellers all over the world how to sell seed to farmers, I’m still amazed at how surprised so many of them are when they discover the training actually works. The look on their faces is priceless and the comments they make afterward provide me with some great testimonials. It’s obvious that most of their shock comes from never having the right kind of training because when you have the right tools, selling seed is not that hard. I know that, because virtually every person I’ve trained who had no sales experience to farmers, make it look easy. Once they are fully trained and have role-played every part of the sales call, they are successful. And the interesting thing is, they don’t act surprised. It’s only the so-called experienced ones who going into shock.

One of the reasons my sales training sessions have been so effective is because I’ve made hundreds of seed sales myself, testing the concepts and showing others how to execute them. I learned early in my career leading more than 40 District Sales Managers and 1200 sales reps that you can’t teach what you can’t do yourself. For example, whenever our company raised the price of our seed which was never a popular move among the salesforce, my first job was to train the salesforce on how to handle the price increase. They needed to believe in it themselves before they could convince someone else it was a necessary move. Once I showed them how to “sell” the idea to prospects and customers, my next goals was to be the first one to fill an order book with sales from new customers. That would prove that increasing price was not a sales stopper. When I did that, they all had surprised looks on their faces that said, by golly, the training works.  

But I wasn’t the only one using that kind of strategy to put surprises on the faces of their sales reps. I got a call from the Director of Sales of one of my large retail clients. He wanted me to teach another session of the Seed Seller Blueprint Strategy. The best part about working with this organization was they made sure EVERYONE in their company went through the training. They believed every employee, whether they were a receptionist, a person behind the counter, a warehouse worker or office worker, needed to know how they were attacking the marketplace. We finished the visit and just before we hung up he said, I need to tell you a quick story.

He said, I took two of our of our so-called experienced sales reps with me to conduct Post Planting Report Card visits. He said, these two guys were not buying into your Blueprint strategy and were saying their customers wouldn’t do some of the things you were telling them to do. They said customers wouldn’t go to the field with them and thought the post planting report card visit was silly.  He said I decided to take them on a couple of calls to show them how this part of the Blueprint works, and if it was a success, they would be the best candidates for testimonials on how everyone should be following the Blueprint.

He said, he had asked each grower to meet him at one of the fields so he could do a Post Planting Report Card Check. They agreed to meet him there.  He said, not only were the growers interested in the process, but they were also impressed with what they learned. The result was those customers decided to buy either fungicide, or fertilizer based on what happened in the field so they could continue to support the crop. One of the salespeople said to me, you didn’t try to sell them anything, they just wanted to buy. They said, it was so easy how the farmers got involved in figuring out their bushels per 1000 plants and how that was established at planting time.”

Those kinds of calls make my day. In fact, they make my entire year because there are so many field sellers who make the process of selling seed so hard. To me, it’s easier than it has ever been to sell seed to farmers. When I hear of people who discover how easy selling can be when they give farmers the kinds of new experiences I teach, I’m not surprised, just excited. As they said in my favorite movie “It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart of course, another angel got its wings.

Happy Selling, I’m Rod Osthus

Who’s Is Helping You Live Longer? [Academy]

Who’s Helping You Live Longer?

I just finished reading Dr. Peter Attia’s latest book, “Outlive”, the science and art of longevity. The book is based on what he calls a “Centenarian Decathlon,” the things you need to do to live 10 plus decades. When I see people who are a hundred years old or more and are still active, it makes me want to achieve that same milestone. Peter admits there’s a genetic component to living a long time, but it’s not a direct correlation. That got me wondering about my future. I’m in pretty good shape for my age. I eat pretty well, exercise and get lots of sleep. What else can I do?

To get those answers I asked my dental hygienist. That’s right, my dental hygienist. Gwen has been a dental professional for over 30 years and knows how having a healthy body contributes to having a healthy mouth and how having a healthy mouth contributes to having a healthy body. Gwen is one of the smartest dental professionals I know. But she took her knowledge to a whole new level by becoming a Certified Integrative Nutritional Health Coach. She knows so much about being healthy because he has made the journey health herself. Through so many years of helping others, she found herself needing to make changes to her own health. After losing more than 60 lbs. and becoming Certified, Gwen now manages 20 other coaches and more than 100 of her own clients of her own. As of March, she will be retiring from dentistry, dedicating all of her time to coaching others how to live healthier, happier lives...

 

 

Are You Still in Your Prime? [Academy]

Are You Still in Your Prime?

 The iconic actress Bette Davis said, “Old age is no place for sissies.” She was right. 

If you want to continue to compete with the younger crowd as you get older, you need to keep your game at the highest level. That is, you need to stop whining about getting older and endure the pain that comes with working hard to stay in shape, both physically and mentally. It takes extra time and effort to keep up with or stay ahead of those younger than you. Plus, it makes it even harder to stay focused on those kinds of goals when society likes to put everyone over 50 into the “over-the-hill” category. 

Most younger people dismiss us older folks as obsolete and unable to contribute as meaningfully as they do to their jobs and to society in general. Many think we are sissies. What they don’t realize is that  sissies aren’t exclusive to the over-the-hill gang. Sissies are everywhere and, in great numbers, even among young people. The phrase in your prime no longer applies to any specific age group. There are people defying the so-called normal effects of aging. In certain sports, where physical prowess is required, people are proving they can outperform everyone else their age, and many who are much younger, by simply outworking them. And when it comes to mental capabilities, never underestimate the older crowd. A friend of mine is an archery competitor. He told me that at the Minnesota State Archery  Championships this year there was a 95-year-old man who was competing. He told my friend he planned to continue to compete as long as he could. 

As a seed seller, at what age are you no longer in your prime? At what age do your selling skills begin to decline and are no longer as effective as younger sellers? The good news is, as long as you keep training and practicing, sales skills never decline. They continue to improve. The bad news is there are plenty of people in sales who have grown old before their time. They’re the group of young sissies who don’t want to put in the time and effort to stay relevant—that is, keep in shape both physically and mentally. They don’t train, they don’t study, and they don’t practice. That’s the fastest way I know to grow old and past your prime in both the sales arena and in life.

Did you know you are always the same age on the inside? So how old are you mentally? Does it match your chronological age or is your mental age a lot younger? I know mine is. I’m 73, but I think and feel like I’m 35. For me, that’s what drives me every day—knowing I’m in an elite category for people my age. I’m not a member of the over-the-hill gang, but rather part of a group that can handle many of the young whippersnappers who want to challenge me to a selling dual. I may not be able to keep up with younger sellers physically, but I can hold my own in mental contests of selling skills. I’ve not only had more years of practice, but continue to practice what I preach.

The key to staying in the game of life is staying in your prime. Regardless of your age you need  to decide what you want to feel like or look like in 5-10 or 20 years. Just look at people around you who are your age and decide if you want to look and act like them. What percent of them are in the elite group, far above all others in both their physical and mentally?   

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go to the gym, then role-play practice my sales story. I can’t let anyone put me in with the over-the-hill gang. I mean, that would signal that I’m getting old—even though I know I’m still only 35.

Happy Selling, I’m Rod Osthus

Do You Leave the Ring Because You Got Hit? [Academy]

Do You Leave the Ring Because You Got Hit?

Epictetus was a Stoic, a member of a special group of Greek Philosophers who believed  people needed to be able to endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining. He was born into slavery and lived in Rome until his banishment when he went to live in Northwestern Greece for the rest of his life. Like all Stoics, Epictetus taught that all external events are beyond our control, therefore we should accept whatever happens to us calmly and without passion or concern. He also said that individuals are responsible for their own actions which they can examine and control through self-discipline. As with all Stoics he believed that we can only rely on our own responses to outside events, even when we can’t control those events.

Stoics liked to use boxing references when teaching about resilience and determination. They often refer to fighting because it's what they knew best. They wrote, for example, “that unbruised prosperity is weak and easy to defeat in the ring, but a man who has been in a constant feud with misfortunes acquires a skin calloused by suffering." The man who is calloused and bruised, he says, “fights all the way to the ground and never gives up.”

Epictetus would want to know what kind of boxer you are, if you leave the ring when you get hit or if you stay and fight? Getting hit is the nature of the sport of boxing! Would that stop you from continuing to fight?

What kinds of things stop you from achieving your goal? How big does an obstacle have to be to get you to stop pursuing it? Does it take a little obstacle to stop you or are you one who never quits? If something gets in your way, are you resilient enough and determined enough to find a way around that obstacle? Do you look for as many options as possible so you can stay on track to your goal or do you just quit when things get tough?

Are You Crowd Sourcing Your Ideas? [Academy]

Over the years crowd sourcing has been an effective way of helping people or businesses that have special financial needs. The strategy involves asking people from all over the world for monetary donations so those in need can get back on their feet after a big loss.

But crowd sourcing is not new. It’s been a popular and effective strategy for the past 50 years in the seed business too, but not 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 competitions to see how they marketed their seed and if successful, plan to use that marketing strategy the next year. The 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, they 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 back then 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...

How Fast Do You Learn?? [Academy]

I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I try to make up for it by learning as much as I can, as fast as I can. Every day I’m surrounded by people who are smarter and learn faster than me. Therefore, to keep up, I follow the advice of author and podcast guru Tim Ferriss who said, “Always believe you’re the dumbest person in the room.” Well I believe I meet that standard whenever I’m with someone other than myself. If I believe everyone else is smarter than me, I work harder to keep up, learn faster and end up ahead of most everyone else.  

The only way I got through college was by taking copious notes. I wrote down everything my professors said in every class. I had notebooks full of lectures. When every class is full of IQ’s higher than yours, you need to figure out how to maximize retention, even if it means carrying the information around with you. My note taking got me through college.

When I got my first job in research, I KNEW I was surrounded by people smarter and more experienced than me. Again, I found myself to be the dumbest person in the department so my entire focus was on learning all I could. It paid off as it got me promoted ahead and above many of my so-called, SMARTER peers.

In today’s fast changing seed marketplace how do you keep up with all of the changes? Do you believe you’re the dumbest person selling seed for your company? Do you spend as much time as you can learning how to stay ahead of everyone else so you can be the only one impressing the farmers you work with? It takes very little time to fall behind. In fact, any seed seller can be obsolete in a month if they aren’t adapting to changes. Most seed sellers don’t keep up. In fact, so many have fallen so far behind in their skills they’ve lost their ability to help farmers go where they need to go. The reason they fall behind is because they’re mesmerized by new products and technologies coming to the marketplace every year. They believe the only skills they need today are product knowledge skills. Worse yet, that attitude has rubbed off on their customers who have been indoctrinated with the same attitude. The result is stagnation of progress when working toward higher yields and profits. All farmers want to do is focus on choosing the right varieties rather than changing and learning new methods of producing higher yields.

Everyone Is Afraid of Something [Academy]

Most of us have something we fear enough to do everything we can to avoid facing it. It may be fear of heights, flying, deep water, public speaking, getting sick and more. We all have reasons to justify our fears based on one of two things, unfavorable experiences of the past which caused the fear, or fear of something we’ve NEVER experienced and are afraid of trying. The word fear, F-E-A-R, has been given the acronym False Evidence Appearing Real. Many times, we don’t know why we have a certain fear, but often, once we face it, we find the fear was unjustified. There was no reason to be afraid.

But there is one fear that plagues virtually every seed seller. It’s the fear of prospecting for new business and it seems to be universal. In my 50 years in the seed business, I’ve found that any seed seller who claims not have a fear of prospecting is not telling the truth. The fear of calling on farmers you’ve never met and getting turned down is real. It keeps so many seed sellers from turning into the driveways of prospects to try to sell them something they’ve never seen, heard of, or purchased. That fear keeps seed sellers from reaching their full potential...

If You’re Not Disciplined, You Wont’ Be Successful [Academy]