38 GERMINATION.CA NOVEMBER 2017 SALES COACHING WHY 95% OF SELLERS WILL MISS THEIR SALES GOALS THIS YEAR Rod Osthus RC Thomas President @RodOsthus • rod@rcthomas.com • rcthomas.com HOW MANY AG sales reps forecasted a sales increase this year? All of them. How many will actually achieve that goal? Less than five per cent. Why? Because the other 95 per cent will not use the No. 1 secret to achieving their sales goals every year — the calendar. After my first few years selling seed, I decided that working so hard to achieve my sales goal was either going to kill me, destroy my family, or both. I found that reacting to what someone else wanted me to do took me away from what I needed to be doing. I discovered that every day on the calendar that did not have my name on it, didn’t belong to me. It was free for the taking by anyone who wanted it, whenever they wanted it. For example, a meeting would be called on a day that I had originally planned, in my head, to go out prospect- ing. Since my plan was not on the calendar, I went to the meeting, giving up an entire day planned for selling. Also, often a customer would call me with a problem and want me to come to see him. Since I had not com- mitted that day on my calendar, I’d say yes. If his call wasn’t an emergency, and I already had that day planned on my calendar, I could have offered him a different day. Instead, I’d let him take that day from me. Once I realized that the secret to achieving my sales goal was controlling my calendar, I never missed another goal again. Before they start each sales year, why haven’t 21st- century ag leaders insisted their entire sales team possess a fully-planned calendar, filled with unchangeable actions designed to generate sales? Why haven’t they scheduled every meeting for the upcoming year that will effectively divert those field reps from selling before the selling season ever starts? Ag sellers need to be protected from themselves. They have an aversion to planning their days, weeks, months or years in advance. I get all kinds of excuses from them about not being able to plan, ranging from sudden changes in weather, to customers who have last-second needs. But there are no legitimate excuses. Time is not spelled t-i-m-e, it’s spelled m-o-n-e-y. They need to wake up and use the No. 1 tool for sales growth and profit — the calendar. SEED HEALTH & TESTING YOU SHOULD TEST TODAY FOR TOMORROW’S YIELD Sarah Foster 20/20 Seed Labs President and Senior Seed Analyst @Sarah2020labs • sarah@2020seedlabs.ca • 2020seedlabs.ca AS THE 2017 growing season comes to a close, it’s a good time to take stock of the season that was, and possible seed issues that might creep up. As the growing season story ends, the seed testing story begins. I actively encourage people to think of seed testing like a book — a germination test is the first chapter that helps set up the story. Germination: It’s the basic yet most fundamental test that is conducted under optimum conditions. It gives you the number of seedlings that are normal out of 200 seeds and are capable of germinating under good-to-ideal field conditions. Germination will tell you if diseases and other factors that affect quality are present. There’s a lot more to this seed quality story, so let’s turn the page and read on about health. Disease: Disease pressure this year has been low due to drier weather conditions, but even with low disease pressure, seed testing remains an important weapon in the growers’ arsenal. Various crops are susceptible to their own unique diseases. Testing for those diseases gives you peace of mind that the book won’t have an unhappy ending. Other major chapters in the seed testing book are: Vigour & Viability: Seeds are placed under stress in a cold environment to determine the potential for rapid and uniform emergence. Since farming is becoming more digi- tal all the time, seeding rate, placement and emergence are more accurate. Purity, both physical and varietal: This is an impor- tant component of quality because we determine the number or weight of serious or troublesome contaminants in the seed sample. Your report of analysis is the key to fully under- standing this story — especially the “remarks” section, which can be considered the fifth chapter of the book. It includes all the background info that will be written in this section. That’s where selling and buying tests as a package comes in. Our lab offers a harvest package as a reliable standard. Growers need to know that these packages offer all the basic weapons they should look for in a seed testing arsenal. When used appropriately, there’s a bounti- ful ending with bumper yields.