b"At Wyffels, Howison says, the annual post-harvest dinner has been replaced by handing out bagged dinners at a drive-through event. It is very difficult to acquire new customers this year as growers dont want to have strangers wandering onto the farm. The right thing to do is make sure customers are safe.The Rise of the Virtual Sales CallA seed sales beat involves driving seem-ingly endless miles of dusty roads and pulling into farmyards either announced or unannounced. In 2020, however, the need to protect customers has altered the sales approach.It is dangerous to assume that every farmer is willing to meet with a sales-person in person, says Scott Downey,Dr. Dariusz Malinowski, Texas A&Ms hibiscus breeder, shows some of the COVID-19 Professor of Agricultural Economics atprotocols Texas A&M has implemented. Purdue University. There should be more of an emphasis today on setting appoint- But it forces salespeople to thinkConferences are mostly all virtual now and ments and making sure it is okay with theabout when they need a meeting andwill be for the foreseeable future.grower to meet. The downside is it maywhat is in it for the customer to be part ofWhere we would have had seed com-allow customers who dont see value inthe meeting. Information about your prod- panies visit in-person at field days to view meeting with salespeople to have an easyucts is not enough. If they want informa- new wheat varieties, for example, it was excuse for not meeting. It is pretty easy totion about your products, it is pretty easydone virtually this year, Coulloudon says. keep a sales person off the farm. The con- to find it online. If it's just talking, there'sIn previous years we would have had sequence of this is difficulty in approach- probably not much in it for the customer.large tour busses full of seed company ing new prospects. I hear that this is theWe have to practice sharing screens withreps and it would have been an all-day biggest challenge sellers are facing today. information that could be useful. Havingaffair visiting the various plots.A few companies I am aware of havea video showing your standability in theCoulloudon adds that seed company tried to do some virtual sales calls usingarea is way more powerful than a picturevisits that had been planned for many Zoom or other tools, Downey says. It is and you can do that online. You canmonths were cancelled or done virtually. hard in many places to do video becausehave charts and graphs, but if you don'tThere were European and American of bandwidth issues. The response fromhave a catalog to flip through you have toseed companies that were going to view growers to virtual meetings, however, hashave some other tools ready. the hardy hibiscus in the fields this past been surprisingly positive. summer, but they had to view the various It is really hard to make sales callsSelling Seed to the Seeds Sellers flowers and plants via photos and video virtually, says Howison. We are in aLand-grant universities, such as Texasconferencing.relationship-based business and lose theA&M, expend a good amount of energyCoulloudon says that AgriLifes annual personal connection with virtual meetings.marketing the genetics developed bydonation of hibiscus plants no longer used Most of our customers still prefer face totheir plant breeders to seed companies. Inin their breeding program was different face meetings as long as we follow safetythe current COVID-19 environment, howthis year. protocols. those genes are marketed has taken on aThese plants were used as a fund-Howison adds that making virtualnew look. raiser for our community to fund a future calls on prospects is even more difficult.We do a lot more phone or videohibiscus festival. Instead of having an event Trying to develop a relationship and earnmeetings than we may have in the past,where people came to a place where we a growers trust is hard to do on a Zoomsays Lileen Coulloudon, marketing strate- had all the plants, the plants were taken meeting. gist for Texas A&M AgriLife. We are work- to a location and people bought tickets Parkin notes the use of phone callsing on revamping our website to make itvirtually and then drove to the location and and newer virtual tools to accomplishmore user friendly and easier for seed com- there was curbside delivery to your car. It sales goals have increased during COVID.panies to find what they are looking for. was touchless and nobody had to get out Virtual internal and B2B company callsCoulloudon says that her network- of their car or go in a building or be with a and meetings have increased significantly. ing as a marketer is now conductedgroup of people.SWVirtual prospecting is hard, accordingvia phone calls or video meetings and to Downey.webinars at the various seed conferences. 18/ SEEDWORLD.COMJANUARY 2021"