One of the studies that most caught my attention at that time was the “Share of Stomach” – Participation of Stomach, which suggested that people have a maximum number of fluid intake per day, which opened a couple of debates to the within the commercial team: 1) we competed with more players than logic would indicate, having involved drinks outside our segment such as flavored ones, natural water, yogurt and even alcoholic beverages and 2) the opportunity to expand our moments of consumption , outside of breakfast.
With this example in mind, when we sell agricultural inputs, machinery or integrated marketing solutions, we compete for the attention of the farmer directly with a number of suppliers.
This leads to frequent contact, close but perhaps excessive if we consider that as well as the involvement of the stomach, here we have a limited number of hours from which the farmer can grant us a few minutes.
3 questions to be able to attend without bothering
How many contacts are adequate?
This is a question that is not always in commercial conversations, however it is necessary that our process of account planning consider the minimum service to be provided and that this definition includes a specific number of visits per week and per month for each client.
It is not about taking it to the extreme of not going even once more than those set out in the plan, because clearly agriculture has taught us that emergencies are the order of the day, the objective is to have a plan to follow as a guide where a high-maintenance, high-value client receives the necessary visits to address their concerns and, on the other hand, not spend too much time on those clients whose account is not going to grow.
I assure you that discussing this point will bring you great benefits.
Do I have my services integrated?
Those organizations that have two or more product lines and that are also complementary, such as machinery and financing, seeds and agrochemicals, or the case of grain storage and processing, typically have specialized sales groups and from my point of view, this separation is very fury.
However it is essential have a clear customer experience design and define at least one of these options:
- A joint visit with both commercial representatives.
- Cross-train both business groups.
- Have an elite group of vendors that offer the company’s comprehensive portfolio.
This will allow us to align customer expectations with the best of our potential as a company and is so effective that agricultural distribution networks have recently tended to integrate their business model as much as possible.
What does the customer want?
There is no doubt that market knowledge can be obtained from many internal sources; however, asking the customer will never go out of style.
Forget surveys for a moment and imagine what would happen if you invited the customer to design the contact and follow-up experience? I have had the opportunity to experience it with clients from the countryside and the co-creation process is fantastic, as it increases engagement with our brands, promotes transparency in the processes and strongly conveys the message that we cannot do it alone and what better than having the farmer as consultant.
sowing reflection
When the pandemic started and it would have been a few weeks since we established the communication platforms, a distributor let me know that the conference in progress, it was the fifth of the week with us (talking about the company) and it was only Wednesday. “The credit manager, the commercial director, the demand generation manager, the salesperson who always assists me, and now you spoke to me… but tell me what you need.”
Perhaps the worst thing was that between us we had no idea of that contact dynamic and we missed the opportunity to even integrate the result of those conversations.
I look forward to it in this space to continue sharing and learning together.