John Deere reducing dealerships

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
'Management' in agriculture and the ancillary industries is a strong word.

I can't see there will be many reps in the years ahead, it's not exactly a thrilling way to earn a living, and anyone who is half decent in sales can earn far more money for less grief in other industries. If you can sell cow cake you can sell a mobile phone, for example.
I disagree

You may be right that there are good sales people in agriculture and others that are dire. Sometimes the person may be constrained by "management" who fly desks and keep at least one desk away from actual customer interface

I've had a wonderful career out of agriculture, well rewarded, seen the World and not only maximised some exciting commercial and operational opportunities but seen much history in the making along the way

However, I now work for a niche go-ahead Company in agriculture and nothing beats the job satisfaction of working with some very talented farmers in an industry I love. Nothing.

Those that are good in "selling cow cake" are strong technically and in maintaining sustainable customer relationships. Personally I've never seen a consultative sales person in the motor or mobile trade.




I have seen a few acting like mobile phone sales people in agriculture








But rarely twice or for long !!
 

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
Ok I've got to ask am I the only moron on here that has absolutely no idea what CRM is?
I will take a wild guess and go for Call me Repeatedly Mate ?
Oh and am I the only one on here who can abide acronyms? I blame the Yanks for this they bloody love them!
Love this ^^^^^^^^

Reps either think Customer Relations Management is just a spy for Management that means their bonus / sale / margin / relationship can be pillaged / abused / sold on or it's wondertech that helps them keep organised in managing timely responses to pre-qualified / identified opportunities (Call me repeatedly at the right time even if it's a long time forward)

Management think that sitting behind a desk viewing "activity" or conversion rates only comes by anally monitoring CRM







The truth is CRM can keep your memory served better, be efficient and timely with what you do and how you do it. It can have back files for technical data or just remind you when his Son's Graduation date is ..........



Often the best outcome might be to recruit and encourage a good relationship builder and honest consultative sales person , give him the tools and help to do the job, ask open questions, insist in good USEFUL data being recorded in a CRM, regular coffee chats or calls and both get in the car to go see a proper prospect when invited and appropriate

Win win win


But then many Ag businesses also think reps are ten a penny just as much as some farmer customers do
 

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
CRM

hmm only as good as the stuff that’s fed into it,

now as it seems most reps can’t be arsed to return calls I very much doubt that they can be arsed to input stuff into CRM either.
That's why successful businesses in Ag have hands on Principals. But that means you can only get to a certain size with this business model - which kind of works against JD in this context
 

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
Interesting catch up over the past few months on this thread tonight

I see Ben Burgess are breaking ground on their new Norwich premises at Tasburgh (or close) on the A140

Who do folks rate as being the best Companies to work for with regard to sales rep support and training ?
 

nick...

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
south norfolk
Interesting catch up over the past few months on this thread tonight

I see Ben Burgess are breaking ground on their new Norwich premises at Tasburgh (or close) on the A140

Who do folks rate as being the best Companies to work for with regard to sales rep support and training ?
Reading the south norfolk council website I don’t think they have a hope in hell of getting it after close to a thousand objections which is a shame.been dragging on fir 2 years too
nick...
 

Robt

Member
Location
Suffolk
Interesting catch up over the past few months on this thread tonight

I see Ben Burgess are breaking ground on their new Norwich premises at Tasburgh (or close) on the A140

Who do folks rate as being the best Companies to work for with regard to sales rep support and training ?
Doubleday are excellent! Still a family company!
 

nick...

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
south norfolk
They will Nick. It can be a million objections but as long as they stay within planning law then it will pass.
I’d be very suprised.its been going on 2 years and large part of site was flooded before Xmas.you should have a look on south norfolk council website.ive supported it via letter as have a lot of farmers and I hope it happens as it’s easier for me to get too.we will see.
nick...
 

AlfM

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Norfolk
Reading the south norfolk council website I don’t think they have a hope in hell of getting it after close to a thousand objections which is a shame.been dragging on fir 2 years too
nick...
I’d be very suprised.its been going on 2 years and large part of site was flooded before Xmas.you should have a look on south norfolk council website.ive supported it via letter as have a lot of farmers and I hope it happens as it’s easier for me to get too.we will see.
nick...
Would you want it behind your house though? I’m neither one way or the other but it seems a stupid location when it’s only a little way to the Southern bypass with plenty of sites with potential. The roundabout above Long Stratton is no doubt a good thing but it slows traffic flow along what is already a bad road. Sticking another roundabout in solely for a tractor dealership and not for others benefits just because the chap is charge is stubborn also seems mad.
 

Barleymow

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Ipswich
are they chained to the farm 24/7/365 ? lonely people only have themselves to blame for either making no effort to socialise or being so obnoxious one wants to bother with them

sales reps are not friends just as prostitutes are not your girlfriend ! .... they are only there for your money
Haven't had much choice in the last year ,no shows to go to going to be the same this year .Quite often go several days without seeing anyone plenty of us work alone
 
Ask @ollie989898 he mentioned them and how they could easy sell cow cake

At no point have I stated that you can sell cow cake like a mobile phone salesman. I don't know if you realise this or not but ruminant nutrition is a highly technical business and not just anyone can do it merely by being a people person- the margin for error is huge and you can cost someone a lot of money very quickly if you don't grasp the science of cattle feeding. I would bet there are now very very few, if any, 'pure' salespeople selling cow cake or even fertiliser in that game now- that kind of mindset is 20 years out of date and won't last long in the business today. Farmers want (and need, in my view) value added services to help them with technical aspects of their business they might not have the skills or time to do themselves.

By way of clarification, I stated in my earlier post that I had no need for a CRM system- a company has a list of active or dormant accounts because they are the ones sending the invoices. Anyone can sit in a truck or at a desk and ring up phone numbers, explain they are the new sales person for the area in question and then make an appointment or, 'just turn up' if that is how they prefer to operate. I could drop into a salesperson's shoes tomorrow if they dropped dead today, all the phone numbers or addresses are there, you don't need an introduction from anyone else- I've seen it done and done it myself as well.

When I started out, I had scant information on who was who or where potential customers lay; I had a map with some names on it but the bulk of them were existing customers being serviced by a colleague already anyway so they were null and void. I went down a million farm drives, sometimes repeatedly, finding out who was where and who to talk to. Sometimes I wasn't even 100% sure of the farmer's name or surname, but I used this as a tool anyway to help me. The first visit down a farm drive is easy peasy- you have a reason to go there. The second and subsequent reasons are harder so you have to engineer or invent them. Once you have a reasonable relationship with people, even if you have never done so much a quids worth of business with them, they will begin to tell you about their neighbours and people they know. It's human nature to want to help people.

Having said that, it is not for everyone and can be a miserable way to earn a living as you are conscious of the fact your income is purely derived from keeping customers on the 'conveyor belt'. It is also extremely difficult to have to hear the inevitable: 'I'll call you if I want anything' line 10 million times.

There are firms out there who put people into the field, brand new at it and expect them to make sales within weeks of starting. That is nonsense in my view. In a technical field and with such long term and tight relationships I would not expect to sell as much as single 25kg bag of anything for the first 12 months. I will never forget my old boss, years ago now, telling me: 'I'm not interested in how much you might sell in the first two years, I want you to tell me how many times you have been invited to sit down at someone's kitchen table and drank coffee with them'.

Transactional sales in agriculture using the hard sell are pretty rare but certainly can be done, often very successfully over the phone, but that is not me or in my character.

It's a dying trade in many ways. One can earn a lot of money from it but I was too much of a perfectionist for my role.

The one thing I did take away from my time in technical sales was the very valuable sales training I was given and a wide appreciation on dealing with people which will serve someone well in virtually any role. There is also a lot of subtle psychology at work and I still find people fascinating to this day.
 
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SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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