50 GERMINATION.CA MARCH 2018 SALES COACHING STOP LISTENING TO YOUR CUSTOMERS! Rod Osthus President, RC Thomas @RodOsthus • rod@rcthomas.com • rcthomas.com WHEN I TELL salespeople to stop listening to their custom- ers, they stop listening to me. They think I’m nuts. It’s because they’ve been taught the No. 1 thing to do if they want to get sales is to be good listeners when talking with prospects and customers. That attitude has gotten a lot of field sellers and their companies in trouble. Salespeople should never listen to two big things custom- ers say. The first one is that your products are too high-priced. How would a customer know that? They have no idea what your costs are. Your costs aren’t the same as your competitor’s, so how could you possibly offer the same price? Grasping that concept makes any conversation about price during a seed sales conversation entirely irrel- evant. How does a customer know if the price you are charging for your products is out of line? The answer: when you deliver zero value to the cus- tomer. In that case, the only real value a farmer actually does get is solely from the products you sell. And since farmers can basically get the same product you sell from your competition, it makes the only real differentiator the salesperson. How much are you worth to your customers? Everything — you are the ONLY value a buyer buys. The second thing salespeople should never listen to is which varieties customers want to buy next year. Customers use only one criteria to make that all-important decision and it’s the previous year’s results. What do last year’s results have to do with what cus- tomers need to plant next year? Nothing. Yet, eager sales reps grateful for the order give customers what they want and not what they really need — a portfolio of varie- ties based on what your company has to sell. Inventory accumulates and becomes unbalanced and the warehouse is soon filled with cash in the form of unsold seed. That’s what happens when you let customers tell you what they want, instead of you telling them what they need. Stop listening to your customers on the two most important factors determining the success of your com- pany — what they want to buy, and what they want to pay. After all, they don’t know the answer to either one. SEED HEALTH & TESTING DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR CUSTOMERS EXPECT OF YOU? Sarah Foster President and Senior Seed Analyst, 20/20 Seed Labs @Sarah2020labs • sarah@2020seedlabs.ca • 2020seedlabs.ca IN A RECENT article for Policy Options, Supriya Syal asks a great question: what if, when we’re developing or imple- menting public policy, we factor in an understanding of the minds of the people who make up that public? The article talks about behavioural science, and how understanding human behaviour can help us make better decisions — decisions that don’t just affect us personally, but those around is. In my job, I have to make business decisions that ulti- mately affect my customers. Knowing what my customers need helps me make the best decisions possible when it comes to customer service and how the business func- tions, but so is knowing how my customers expect my staff and I to behave toward them. In all my years running a business, I’ve learned the following about my customers and what they expect when they come to me for help. They want to know I care. Building a rapport with the customer is very important. Obviously when you’re dealing with high-value product that your customer is entrusting to you, you need to build trust through knowledge. We ensure that our staff members are all informed daily through a morning meeting about new events, training and trends. We create an internal newsletter that is written by staff about seed quality trends and the like. This helps us help our clients with the latest issues that pop up. They expect professionalism. Apart from the obvi- ous courtesy of being polite, we have a code of conduct and we’re known for taking time to answer the tough questions — and admit when we don’t always know the exact answer. The wrong behaviour can hurt a client and their liveli- hood, and as a result, it can hurt my business. If a client leaves you for another seed testing firm, it takes a long time to gain that respect back — if you ever do. Over time, I’ve learned the importance of develop- ing a specific company culture that ensures we always listen intently to our clients’ needs and wants. In my next column, I’ll discuss some ways I’ve learned to do this. In the meantime, ask yourself this: what do your customers expect of you? Make a list and determine what you’re doing right and where you might need to improve.