b'SEED TREATMENT APPLICATION BUSINESS GROWTHCover Crops and Coatings: A Better Path for Soil, Sustainability, and the Bottom Line The #1 Reason Your Story Isnt Landing (And How to Fix It)JOSEPH YOUNG Director of Business Development, Summit Seed Coatingsjoseph.young@summitseedcoatings.com SHAWN BROOK President, Seed World Groupsbrook@seedworldgroup.comseedworldgroup.com@SeedWorldGroupWEVE ALL HEARDit a thousand times: tell your story. eager attention. Thats it. If you bring earnest and eager atten-And yet, here we are, still talking about it. Why? Because whiletion to the person youre trying to reach, your story will land.everyone knows theyre supposed to do it, too many are gettingHeres where we complicate things unnecessarily. Too often, it wrongand the difference between checking a box and trulycompanies jump straight into planning: firing up the social media connecting is everything. calendar, drafting the press release, booking the booth at the The fatigue people feel around storytelling doesnt come fromtrade show.the act itself. It comes from forgetting why we do it. If youre tell- But a plan without strategy is like building a seed plant with-ing your story because a VP of marketing told you to crank outout a blueprint. Strategy is the how and why. Plan is the what and three LinkedIn posts a week, youre not actually telling a story when. When you shortcut strategy, execution falls apart.youre fulfilling a quota. Thats not connection, thats compliance. So before you post another video or write another article, ask The stories that matterthe ones that resonate with farmers,three questionsin this order:regulators, customers, and your peersstart with intent. True1. Whos the audience? Who specifically are you trying tointent. And thats where most organizations stumble. reach?When your intent is about making yourself the hero, youre2. Whats the message? What do they need to hear? just information sharing. Thats fine, but its not storytelling.3.Which channel? Only after the first two are clear does the Storytelling begins when the other person becomes the hero.channel matter.When your audience can see themselves in the arc of what youreFlip that order, and youll end up with noise. Follow it, and saying, youve crossed into connection. youll find connection.I like Merriam-Websters take on what intent is: earnest and PLANT BREEDING SOFTWAREEnding World Hunger Through InnovationCHRISTOPHER LEONARD President, Agronomix Softwarechristopher.leonard@agronomix.comagronomix.comONE DAY,about a year ago, I gathered my staff together andThe data analysis necessary for field crop breeding is complex asked them what they would like to be able to boast about fiveand over the 30 years thats followed, Dieter oversaw a team years from now and the answer I got back was as simple as it wasof experienced plant breeders and software developers who passionate: They want to be able to say they helped end hunger. together implement improvements and additions to the software Thanks to our founder, Dieter Mulitze, our software is in a posi- that are designed to meet the diverse needs of plant breeders tion to do that by providing plant breeders, crop researchers andacross the globe. agronomists around the world with the tools they need to improveTheres more we can do. It hasnt escaped our notice that 95 food sustainability though the development of more resilient cropspercent of plant breeders in South America currently use Microsoft that deliver increased yields and reduce food waste.Excel, which lacks many of the critical tools breeders need to opti-That came about organically. Dieter was working as a cerealmize the management and analysis of their data, inventory seeds, breeder in Morocco in the late 1980s, a time when most plantincrease their research productivity and assist them in quickly breeders were still recording their data in notebooks theyselecting the best possible varieties for their region. brought with them into the field. Needless to say, plant breedingThe environment for growing crops for many countries in the programs generate massive amounts of data and breeders oftensouthern hemisphere is a lot harsher than it is in the northern found themselves trying to organize all of it using large paperhemisphere. Plant breeders in LATAM need access to tools that spreadsheets. It was time consuming and slowed innovation.allow them to efficiently develop regionally optimized crops that Dieter wanted a better way to manage and analyze his data so hedeliver the resiliency and higher yields that are key to ending set about writing a program that gave him the tools he needed. Ahunger both regionally and globally.chance encounter on a plane in the late 1980s convinced him thatDelivering those tools is a goal our team members have set other plant breeders would benefit from those same tools and, infor themselves and one they come to work every single day in an 1990, Agronomix Software was born.effort to achieve. OCTOBER 2025SEEDWORLD.COM /43'