Playing the Long Game in Ag Retail
July 15, 2020 As an editor who unexpectedly started my professional life as a seller of exhibit space for a large regional home and garden event, I have a healthy measure of empathy for our sales team. Developing content is where I like to live, but we can’t do what we do if someone isn’t out there selling … and selling value.
Every once in a while, one of our sales team will get a phone call “out of the blue” with an ad order, which might tempt someone to think, “wow, that’s easy. All they have to do is pick up the phone.” But we know that 99% of the time it took months of cold calling, personal visits, proposals, trade show booth drop-ins, and a bunch of “No, thank yous” to get to that “instant success.” The best salespeople I’ve worked with thrive on persistence, and belief in the Long Game.
The threads that connect months and years of background work to ultimate success are important to honor and remember when successes do come, and critical to keep in mind when victory is fleeting and the work we do feels thankless. That’s especially true in the crop year 2020.
I’ve mentioned in other editorials that the exercise we’ve all endured through social distancing has revealed the real value of connectivity and data compatibility. Retailers who worked thankless months and years creating platforms to allow farmers to connect through software and digital tools could point to real benefits to farmer-customers this season. In 2020, the payoff has been real.
Now, it seems that more opportunities will be arising from the all-out assault on the weed control tools our customers count on to ensure productivity and crop health. Speculation had been running rampant as to whether or not we’ll have dicamba the rest of this year and into 2021 until it made big headlines in June. And, more products could be under scrutiny going forward.
The anti-pesticide crowd has been engaged in a Long Game of its own, and threatens to bring large segments of Midwest farming to its knees if the legal winds continue to blow against agriculture.
Whether the absolute worst case weed control systems scenarios play out later this year, or we end up with the tools we planned on having available next season, our farmer-customers will be relying on us to have the best possible options for herbicide programs to consider.
And of course, more threats loom: A possible second wave of COVID-19, a big crop that could subsume storage in many regions this fall, an incredibly bizarre election year on tap, to name a few.
For retailers and trusted advisers, it’s all part of the Long Game that we thrive on. And the work we do now will be critical to delivering value to customers in 2021.
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