The Blog for the Ag Sales Professional
An Agriculture blog dedicated to selling in agribusiness. These Ag blog articles focus on the best practices for selling to farmers and livestock producers. We also focus on those salespeople who call on Ag buyers at the thousands of agribusinesses that serve the farming community
Learn how to deal with the Polarity Responder No, this is not an article about the song by Chubby Checker. The Twist I am referring to is the Polarity Twist. Flipping through some magazines at my local library, I came across a psychology magazine that ran an article on something called a “Polarity Responder”. Since […]
Everyone can benefit from increasing their coachability Over the last 26 years of coaching salespeople, I’ve found most are open to coaching at some level. Often, they are more open to coaching than me. However, occasionally I’ve run across that really stubborn individual that just doesn’t want to receive coaching. For easier understanding, I’ll […]
You Lead Teams, Manage Things and You Coach the Individual It’s happening all across the agribusiness industry: Mergers, Acquisitions, and Consolidation. One of the results of these three events is overloading your sales managers. Now, I understand the thought process of increasing a sales manager’s workload and adding salespeople to their area. Sales managers are […]
Even the best need a coach – And they do more with that coaching than most A few quick notes before we jump into the list. First, coaching should be defined for the purposes of coaching a sales team. I am referring to the one to one interaction of working with a salesperson on improving […]
Sales Lessons from Salmon Fishing in Alaska When Thom Winninger said “leaders don’t compete”, I thought quite possibly he had been out in the sun too long. Because everyone knows that leaders are highly competitive. They set out on their epic journey and slay the competition along the way to arrive at the top of […]
Take your “Starter Territory” to the top of your company’s charts! Everyone has a first day on the job. And every salesperson has a first territory. All is fine on day one as you settle into your new job, but soon after, you begin to get an uneasy feeling about your territory. Your customer list […]
From Peddler to Partnership, the Yin and Yang struggle that all salespeople go through It’s a journey as salespeople that we all make. From peddling on price to positioning as a partnership. Trust me when I say, none of us want to sell on price. We all want to sell on value. We all […]
And how easy it is to correct Hypocrite is certainly a strong word and I can soften it up, but I’m afraid that’s exactly what we do. We say one thing and do another. In sales, it means expecting our customer to do something that we don’t do ourselves. Frequently in a training or coaching […]