The Ag Sales Professional 3.0: What will the successful Ag Sales Professional look like in the year 2030?

Greg MarƟ nelli Ag Sales Professionals

What will the successful Ag Sales Professional look like in the year 2030?

We love the future!

We fl ock to movies about the future. Books on the future fl y off the shelves. And I’m sure there are sƟ ll a steady stream of clients who pay people to predict their future by reading palms or cards.

In the business world, we are enthralled with the future as well. We make predicƟ ons on how we will operate in thirty, forty or fiŌ y years. Usually these predicƟ ons involve less people doing more with some form of extremely advanced technology. There are self-driving cars, hover boards and compact tools which make life much easier and faster.

In agribusiness, it usually involves less labor, bigger data and satellite/drone usage wrapped up in a new computer plaƞ orm. Walking through the Ag Info Conference last year, you could see many of the advancements coming our way. There were computer plaƞ orms for farm fi nancial management, for grain markeƟ ng management and of course for agronomy/ crop producƟ on.

Seeing all this, made me wonder how a salesperson will funcƟ on in this changing agribusiness economy. I’m calling our salesperson from the future, “Salesperson 3.0”. In 2030, what role will Salesperson 3.0 play in crop and livestock producƟ on? How does an agribusiness prepare? More specifi cally, how does a sales manager lead their sales team through the eventual change? How far out should they try to predict and plan for serving their marketplace?

Why 10 years?

The reason for a ten-year range is due to how long it takes to adapt your sales team and business structure to a changing environment. In agribusiness, we have buildings, processing plants, elevators, rolling stock and an enƟ re set of people dedicated and moving in one direcƟ on. Hopefully, that direcƟ on is focused on serving a viable paying customer. While Rome could

32 SPRING 2020 have been built in a day, it might not have looked as nice nor stood for 1000 years. Same goes for your agribusiness. From start to fi nish, it could take 3-5 years minimum to go from concept to a brand-new feed mill, grain elevator, Ag retail locaƟ on or a new truck fl eet. Ten years is probably more likely as we try to limp along with the old equipment for as long as we can. We could sƟ ck one of those bumper sƟ ckers on our old ferƟ lizer mixer, “At least it’s paid for!” While we are enjoying the cash cow stage of our faciliƟ es and even our sales team, the market is evolving from underneath us. UnƟ l, we are forced to change.

The second reason we need to look at ten years down the road is the length of Ɵ me it takes to adapt a sales team. With ten or twenty salespeople on your team, you have more systems, processes and culture involved than you may realize. You have compensaƟ on plans, territory structures, selling styles, internal and external hardware and soŌ ware for serving customers, and support teams behind those salespeople. You have salespeople in early, mid and late career. Wanted or not, your current team has a culture and a brand. Your culture is what you and they have created. Your brand is what your culture created in the mind of your customer. These two factors need to be considered when making the change to Salesperson 3.0. Unless it’s clearly needed, companies that change culture and brand too fast tend to stumble in their execuƟ on in the marketplace. Farmers become confused, take their business elsewhere and force you to reconsider your changes.

Making a change not only takes Ɵ me but potenƟ ally new salespeople. I see this directly related to how fast a salesperson is willing to change. I say willing because it’s their choice. If a salesperson is reluctant to change and wants to hold onto the past, they beƩ er hope the past remains profi table. Otherwise, progress will run them over and it has no conscience. If you don’t believe me, look out the window on your next Uber ride, and look at the taxi’s waiƟ ng for riders.

Salesperson 3.0

Faster: • Faster product life cycles • Faster Go-to-Market strategies • The DIY, Gig economy

Our Salesperson 3.0 will be faster because the world is faster. Gone is much of the reliance on brick & mortar, steel plate print design, hard copy prototypes, large scale producƟ on requirements. The internet and digital technology allow us to create and produce right from our laptop. Not everything, but enough that it has changed the speed of business.

We no longer need to build an all-inclusive facility to get product designed and a prototype produced. Small businesses have sprouted up in every industry to do contract work. Uber and Airbnb have ushered in the gig economy. In packaging, the printed bags used to require the Ɵ me and expense of making steal plates at a high cost. Making changes required the expense of creaƟ ng new plates. Today, bag images are digital, easy to make changes and print on demand.

If your product or service is based on any form of a computer program, the speed of change for your products just picked up the pace. The minute you become trained on it, get your mind set on the fact that a version 3.0 is on its way in 6-12 months. You need to run with and sell what you have, but be ready for the upgrade. The upgrades are not because the techies are “geeking” out and want to add bells and whistles. The upgrades allow you to beƩ er serve your customer, remain ahead of compeƟƟ on and ward off hackers. Those three endeavors are endless for computer programs.

Smarter: • Smarter consumers and buyers of your products • Smarter technology • A more connected world

Again, we run into the internet which allows our farmer and our distributor to be smarter buyers. By distributor, I am referring to your dealer, ag retailer or other distribuƟ on channel, which you sell through. If you sell direct to the farmer/producer, then disregard. Your customer, no longer needs a salesperson to come along and educate them on the basics of your products. They already read it on your website. Then went to Yelp or TwiƩ er to see what your customers said. They now need a salesperson to be an educated and trusted advisor on your products. Salesperson 3.0 will spend less Ɵ me on selling product and more Ɵ me on the eff ecƟ ve applicaƟ on of their products on this specifi c farm.

Another area that Salesperson 3.0 needs to be smarter in is how their products and services fi t into the enƟ re picture for the customer. As farmers get smarter and use more complex systems, they are using systems that are not stand alone. Raw data is coming in from mulƟ ple sensors and formats from equipment, satellite programs and vendors. Unless you sell every crop input and program needed to grow a crop, your products are only a part of the farmer’s enƟ re management system. Salesperson 3.0 will have to understand how their products funcƟ on along side other vendor’s products.

BeƩ er: • Bringing all your resources to bare • CollaboraƟ ve • A Big Thinker on Small ExecuƟ on • Faster & BeƩ er adopƟ on of change

Our Salesperson 3.0 needs to be beƩ er. This begs the quesƟ on, “BeƩ er than what?” The answer is “better than before”. If you have been in sales for a long Ɵ me, you will understand this by thinking back to your fi rst years on territory. Mine were in the 90’s: pre-cell phone, pre-internet, which means pre-email! Wow, talk about the good old days! I won’t bore you with stories about how hard life was when we had to know where pay phones were and remember our calling card number. Or how we had to navigate our territory without GPS.

I will tell you that the salesperson I was in the beginning of my selling career would not survive in today’s market. Watching the NFL top 100 this year, reminded me of this. Growing up in the 70’s and watching the great players from the Steelers and the Cowboys, it’s nostalgic to watch the old videos. However, the speed and complexity of the game would make most of those players outdated for the fi eld today. We are no diff erent. We have to be beƩ er to remain relevant in our customer’s eyes.

How to be beƩ er? • Quit the lone ranger game and bring all your resources to bare: You have great internal resources on your team: operaƟ ons, trucking, management, and even accounƟ ng. Bring them to your customer. Salesperson 3.0 will understand for this to happen, they will have to lead it. • CollaboraƟ ve: What does that mean? To be collaboraƟ ve means Salesperson 3.0 will look verƟ cally and horizontally in the farmer’s supply channels. 3.0 will look for ways to connect better with other vendors (horizontal). This might involve alliances, joint ventures, co-promoƟ ons, etc. They will also look verƟ cally. This means collaboraƟ ng with their vendors to beƩ er serve their customer. It might also involve collaboraƟ ng with their customer in a new way, which allows the farmer to serve a new, diff erent or niche market. Specialty grains are good examples. To successfully grow this crop, the producer needs verƟ cal collaboraƟ on. They need vendors who supply seed, a nearby elevator who provides storage and

handling, and a transport company that gets it to the eventual end user. • A Big Thinker on a Small Scale: The farmer is being deluged with big ideas through direct ads on every social media plaƞ orm. They see these big picture ideas, but oŌ en have no idea how to implement them on their farm. Nor do they know whether or not it’s eff ecƟ ve or profi table to implement these big picture ideas. Your customer is looking for Salesperson 3.0 to bring some common sense management decisions to their farm. 3.0 will need to be able to explain the technology, where it’s a fi t and where it’s not. • Faster & BeƩ er adopƟ on of change: 3.0 will be a Master Change Agent. Here’s a thought. Instead of fi ghƟ ng change and clinging to the old way, what if you became the most excited, change agent on your team? What if you went to the next product training and instead of bemoaning change, you jumped in and started clicking every buƩ on and opƟ on on the new technology? It’s really your choice. You could do it if you wanted. If so, you would be taking the fi rst steps towards becoming 3.0.

The last piece of the puzzle in becoming Salesperson 3.0 is making sure it’s profi table for you and your company. Many of the above acƟ viƟ es don’t have an increased direct cost to your company. Learning to be smarter on your products and your industry, embracing technology, and bringing all your resources to bare are free in terms of cash outlay. However, they do come at a Ɵ me cost. CollaboraƟ on takes Ɵ me. Bringing your internal resources to the customer takes your producƟ on and trucking manager away from doing their normal roles. That Ɵ me does have a cost.

One of the most important roles of Salesperson 3.0 is making sure they are spending that Ɵ me with the right customers. There needs to be an ROI on 3.0’s Ɵ me or all the eff ort is wasted. The right customer means big enough to make success worth the Ɵ me. It also means a customer that won’t price shop you against the compeƟƟ on who don’t off er the kind of experƟ se you do. If they do this type of unfair comparison, Salesperson 3.0 will move on. Being Faster, Smarter and BeƩ er needs to be something a customer values and pays for.

Maybe we could call them Customer 3.0! Greg works with agribusinesses on sales training, coaching and speaking at their events. He works with associaƟ ons through keynote and breakout presentaƟ ons. To discuss how he can help you, your team or your associaƟ on contact Greg MarƟ nelli at Ag Sales Professionals, LLC at (608) 751-6971. Email Greg@GregMarƟ nelli.net Web site www.GregMarƟ nelli.net You can also order your copy of his new book “A Season for Sales: Your guide to Ag sales success” The only book wriƩ en specifi - cally for Ag Sales Professionals by an Ag Sales Professional.

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