How to be Honest when Selling to Farmers

Last time, I wrote about the number #1 quality farmers looked for in their sales person.  The Purdue research polled over 1600 grain and livestock producers, large and small.  That survey revealed that Honesty was the #1 quality.

Sounds easy.  Don’t’ lie, just be honest.  However, I think it goes way beyond that.  Farmers, anyone for that matter, want to deal with a sales person and company that has Integrity.  From the minute you start out in sales, you are going to be faced with moments where your honesty and integrity will be challenged.  I’m not referring to the outright lying or deceptive type decisions.  Those type of black and white decisions shouldn’t pose a problem.  Selling in the agriculture world has many shades of gray when it comes to selling products with integrity.  Below are some of those challenges I have seen first-hand:

• We forgot to add a key ingredient to a dairy feed. The cows were dropping production fast.  The customer didn’t know why and didn’t suspect the feed.  The sales person dug into it and discovered that a key ingredient had been left out of the formula.  Do we admit it and pay the lost milk production or just fix the next load of feed and save on the embarrassment and financial loss?
• The wrong bulk feed was made but shipped as the correct one. The delivery truck just unloaded the feed into the customer’s bin and I received a call from the feed mill.  We made the wrong feed but tagged it correctly.  Not sure exactly how, but things happen and we now faced a decision.  Do we let the customer know that we need to come back out, remove the auger boot off the bin, use a portable auger to vacuum up the 18 tons of feed and replace it with a new load or let the feed stay there in the “hope” it doesn’t hurt production too much?
• A key customer gave me a large order for a bagged product that I knew we wouldn’t be able to deliver. Not only a key customer, but one we had worked long and hard to get, then made several errors with.  So, we were not on the top of their good list and as always, competition was waiting to for an opportunity to replace us.  Do I tell them we might not be able to fill the order or do I take the order and fill it from another customer’s order or just hope that we can fill it somehow?

Luckily, I worked for a company that held Integrity in high regard and we had a method on how to deal with situations like this.  It was a very easy method to follow.  The question we asked was, “Will it stand the light of day?”  By that, we meant, “If the decision was to become public knowledge, would I feel like I did the right thing?”  If the answer is no, then you need to rethink your decision.

The real reward for conducting our business with high Integrity wasn’t just that we did the right thing for the customer and it felt good.  There were a lot of eyes watching how we handled the situation: Truck drivers, manufacturing team, other sales people in the company and the administration team.  By setting a good example in how we dealt with customer situations, employees realized that they too would be dealt with honestly in their employment.  Which leads to higher employee engagement.  Don’t underestimate how important that aspect is to the team you work with or lead.

Mistakes are going to happen, gray areas are going to present themselves and you will be faced with making that decision.  Be careful of the easy road.  It may not be so easy nor so engaging for your team.

One final thought.  What about lawyers and liability?  With the increased attention on food and feed safety, we get worried about admitting fault and opening ourselves up to litigation.  There is a legal process and most companies work with an attorney or have company attorneys that help chart the legal path.  They help with what can be divulged and what proper releases need to be signed.  Obviously, honor this process.  By saying be honest, I don’t mean you have to tell everything that went on or reveal company intellectual property to gain the trust of a customer.  The customer may want that, but certainly should understand the limitations on what can be revealed.  Mostly, they want a sales person and a vendor they can trust to do the right thing.

Good Luck