Ag Sales Professional's Podcast by Greg Martinelli

“Can you send me an email and tell me what you did last week?”

is not a bad question

Preface:  This is not a political commentary despite using a political reference.  This is all about accountability and improving your sales results.

“If you are working as hard as you possibly can toward growing your sales and taking care of customers, then responding to an email like this shouldn’t phase you a bit.  I would gladly fill it out and hope that someone calls me to let me know how I can do it better.”   Greg Martinelli

The question itself is not bad, not unfair, and not micro-management……unless

• It depends on the manager asking

Listen in as we discuss how this question can be used as a salesperson and sales leader for positive results!

Which is better to focus on,

a producer’s needs or their wants?

The short answer is Both!

As farm profitability tightens up, so does the farmer’s wallet.  Their first reaction will be to reduce spending across the board.

Your company’s reaction:

Your company feels the brunt of this as your P&L statement begins to take a hit.  Gross sales and gross margin are down.  Yet, overhead hasn’t changed.  So, your agribusiness company has its own choices. 

Your reaction as a salesperson: You compile more data.  You develop more ROI calculations

Your customer’s reaction: They consider your comments but decide to go with a lower upfront or out-of-pocket cost.  Why?  Because that is what they “Want”.

Listen in as we discuss the 4 ways you can help your company, your customers, and yourself in the next 12-18 months

One with your top 5 and one with your manager

After working with agribusiness sales teams from East to West Coast and from Texas to Alberta, I can tell you that every salesperson will benefit from having these two conversations right now.  The outcome will help you focus your selling efforts on the two most important areas: your company and your best customers.

Conversation #1:  Go meet with your top 5

Conversation #2: Go meet with your manager

Listen in as we discuss the importance of these two conversations you need to have to shape the rest of your selling year!

A needed selling skill when selling through tough economic times on the farm

Last week, we went over the fact that farmers shop harder during tough times.  This week, I want to also remind salespeople that in tough times producers will reduce all expenses with their vendors.  You are going to experience more “No” responses in your closing questions than you did previously.

That fear of rejection (no) is still one of the strongest emotions that salespeople have.  So fearful, many salespeople will find any excuse not to cold call or prospect.  Just the act of turning the steering wheel and driving down the farmers driveway seems impossible. 

Listen in as we go over how you can rethink your view of the dreaded “No” and a quick response to help you get closer to a “Yes”

That’s both good news and bad news for the Ag sales professional

If you haven’t guessed the theme for the last two months of my articles,

it’s “Selling to farmers in tough economic times”.

The focus has been and will continue to be about why this is a good time to be in sales.  I want to bring you as many positive reasons why this downturn is so critical for your sales career.  More importantly, why it is so important for your customer relationships.

Today’s message is an easy one to understand and will help you stay motivated to keep selling.

“Farmers shop harder during tough times”

Listen in as we discuss the Good and Bad News side of tough times and how an Ag Sales Professional can turn this into an opportunity!

And the 1 message you must hear as an Ag Salesperson

At this moment, our industry has become a noisy world of negative ag stories. Some are warranted, and some are not. 

In 2024, we had tough Ag economics and we are one week away from a president inauguration, which could add more stress to an already difficult situation.  So, today, I want to share some messages your customers are looking for from you as their salesperson. 

Whether the negativity is justified or not, you are still responsible for calling on farmers and agribusinesses to grow your business.  While everyone you meet is going to jump into this momentum with their own negative take on Ag, I want you to think differently about it.  That doesn’t mean ignore it or deny it.  I just want you to focus on what your customers really want from you.

Listen in as we cover the 5 messages you can take to the farm and the 1 message you need to hear as their salesperson!

The Ag Sales Professional’s Guide

to better discovery methods

Selling can be viewed as a Q & A exchange (questions and answers).  We go to the farm, ask questions to find a need, and then sell a product that hopefully meets that need.  The struggle occurs when we do a poor job of truly identifying that need. 

A big contributor to the salesperson’s problem is the poor listening habit of, “thinking about the next question”.  This happens when we fail to listen to the farmer’s answer.  Instead, we are thinking about our next question.  All the while, missing out on the gold mine that is just one or two additional questions beyond.

Listen in to learn how you can avoid these mistakes and learn more from every sales call.

When to pull the trigger on grain sales

This is not just for grain buyers or merchants. Your farmers pay for your products with the money they earn from grain sales. If you sell to farmers or your customers sell to farmers, listen to or watch this interview with Susan Stroud. It just might help you understand your farmer customers a little better.

 Timeline and topic discussed:

0:45    The importance of understanding your farmer’s decision on grain marketing

1:10     Susan Stroud “No Bull Marketing”

 3:02    Her journey from large grain company to entrepreneur

 8:30    Working with Farmers, Grain Traders, and her leap into renewable fuels discussions

10:30   Making the complex simpler.  Using visuals to explain the complicated world of grain

11:10   The significance of “No Bull”

16:00   The impending volatility of 2025 with a new administration

20:05   The different landscape in renewable fuels in Trump’s second term

23:45   What a non-grain marketer can do

27:00   The dilemma farmers get into when they feel they missed an old crop opportunity

31:02   What farmers need most – Keep it simple

40:26   Another emotion farmers have, “Sold too Soon” which quickly changes to “Didn’t sell Enough”

45:53   The importance of a good crop insurance agent to a farmers grain marketing ability

47:00   Opportunities to join Ag Summits and AgVentures

Click below to listen

Sales mirror, sales mirror on the wall,

who’s the greatest salesperson of all?

Well, it’s the end of the year and the new year is almost upon us.  How did you do? 

In the next 30-60 days, that conversation will go on all over agribusiness as salespeople sit down with their managers to reflect on the last 12 months and plan the next 12. 

That famous quote or question, “Mirror, mirror on the wall…” is from the film, Snow White.  In that early scene, the wicked queen asks the know-it-all-mirror …..” who is the fairest of them all?”  When the mirror replies that it’s “Snow White”, we all know that answer is too difficult for the queen to deal with.  She sets out on a vindictive path of doing harm.

What about you?  When you reflect on this past year, will you own your results? Will you accept the feedback or discussion you have in your annual review?  Will you focus on how you can improve?  Or will you point out other’s faults as an excuse to not change?  Personally, having done all of the above, I found the power of questions during these conversations to be somewhat of a magic tool to help.

Listen in to discover 10 questions to open up the annual review and business planning conversation

Or is it all about price?

The idea for today’s article occurred many years ago as I tried to differentiate myself from all the other salespeople calling on my customers.  I sold in the B2B (business to business) industry of selling to farmers and feed dealers. 

You might think that in business-to-business selling, it would be all hardnosed negotiation styles of purchasing and everything would come down to the bottom-line pricing.  And sure, there were those sales.  However, I also realized that even B2B buyers prefer to buy from a salesperson or a company that has better customer service. 

Just how important is customer service in the agribusines world? Does it overcome higher prices? how much higher prices?

Listen in as we pull ideas from several industry experts and a recent study from Farm Journal