JANUARY 2018 SEEDWORLD.COM / 43 DO YOU SPEND time every year wor- rying whether or not your salespeople are going to achieve their sales goals? Most managers do, and for good reason. Salespeople are getting weaker. It’s not because the marketplace is getting tougher, and they’re not losing the sales skills you taught them — they’re just not using them. Instead, they’ve been wooed by our industry’s constant release of new prod- uct innovations that promise winning on more farms, making selling easier. What seller can resist those kinds of promises? When new product releases become the primary source of excitement and motivation on sales calls, sales go south. Selling to a farmer starts with a trusting relationship between the farmer and the seller and not with the products he buys. Buying seed is a very serious purchase for every grower because it determines his entire livelihood. Farmers need someone they can rely on to help them raise yields to levels they never thought possible. Leading with new products automati- cally puts sellers into proof of performance contests. Growers ask them to prove the worth of their new offerings in plots or side-by-sides — strategies diametrically opposed to relationship building. That’s why truly successful seed sellers aban- doned those strategies years ago. It sounds silly to think that innova- tion can hinder sales, but it does. It’s not that there’s too much innovation, it’s that we’ve allowed our product innovations to make selling skills appear obsolete. When field sellers analyze the amount of time their managers have them training on new products versus honing their selling skills, it leaves them with the impression Why Innovation Can Weaken Even the Best Sales People ROD OSTHUS R.C. THOMAS COMPANY PRESIDENT @RodOsthus • rod@rcthomas.com • rcthomas.com that selling skills are becoming obso- lete. As a result, they change from rela- tionship builders to innovation sellers. Profitable sales growth always starts with talented salespeople who know how to sell themselves first, their company second and their products last. That strategy will never become obsolete because we sell seed — a living, breathing organism that farmers need help managing. The primary goal has to be creating long-lasting relationships with growers who allow field sellers to assist them in their crop production system, not just in variety selection. Don’t let innovation weaken your sales force. You don’t need a constant flow of new products for farmers. You just need to make sure your sales team knows the role innovation plays in the selling process. WHEN I AM ASKED about this, I pause and ask questions myself. But I find the answers lie in the fact that, as plants evolve, we need to encourage opera- tors to become seedsmen and not just operators: knowing how everything fits together and not just how the individual pieces work. Here are 5 ways to get the most out of your Gravity Separator. 1. Know the limitations of your grav- ity table: This machine is designed to separate products by pure density. Heavy products will move up the deck, while the lighter material will be floated to the top of the fluidized product and migrate to the lower side of the table. The Gravity does not know color, shape or one prod- uct from the other. Simply weight. 2. Understand what the adjust- ments do: Separation happens by using air to fluidize the product, using side tilt to impede lighter material, and allow- ing eccentric speed to drive the better product to the high side of the deck. A combination of all these adjustments allows you to fine tune where the good portion and contaminate discharges from the gravity table. 3. Sample test: A quick way to know if you are truly getting density separa- tion is to check weights. The product discharged at the low rail should be lighter than the product discharging at the high rail. You don’t know what changes to make if you don’t know what you currently have; you don’t know if the changes you made have worked unless you verify the result. 4. Routine Maintenance: Gravity sep- arators are very mechanical machines. Proper care of bearings, air filters, deck cover, air boots and other vital moving 5 Ways to get the MOST out of your Gravity Separator DAVE MEANS SERVICE MANAGER, OLIVER MANUFACTURING Dave.Means@olivermanufacturing.com • olivermanufacturing.com parts is critical. Follow your manufac- turer’s instructions for greasing intervals. Properly maintained, these machines will perform for many years. Preventive main- tenance will save you from having down time during the season. 5. Look at the entire process: Every machine in your process is a tool. We don’t change a tire without using multiple tools, and we cannot achieve great qual- ity standards without using all the tools in our plant. If we are seeing more contami- nate than normal on our gravity, look to see what is happening at the cleaner. By engaging your employees in all of these practices, you will be developing operators that understand what stand- ards you want to achieve, how to use the tools to reach them, and what adjust- ments it took to make it happen. Your operator is now a Seedsman.