One with your top 5 and one with your manager
After working with agribusiness sales teams from East to West Coast and from Texas to Alberta, I can tell you that every salesperson will benefit from having these two conversations right now. The outcome will help you focus your selling efforts on the two most important areas: your company and your best customers.
Conversation #1: Go meet with your top 5
Every salesperson should know from top to bottom who their best customers are. They should know it by units and by dollars, or ideally by both. My guess is that you will find the top 5 customers (20%) contribute 80% of your results. Call those top 5 customers and schedule a very pointed and short discussion on the below topics.
- Their business goals for the next 12-18 months.
- Their expectations of you, your products, and your company in the next 12-18 months. What is the impact on their business if those expectations are met?
- Based on their industry economics, what changes do they plan to make? Many areas of agribusiness are under heavy financial challenges. With those challenges, how are they planning to react to them?
- If they are a reseller, who is their targeted customer base? Are they focused on big or small farms, dairy, hogs, beef, or poultry.? What are the goals of those focused customers?
After completing these 5 meetings, compile all your notes from them. Review them and make some observations on where and when you should use your company resources to better serve your top customers. You want to focus on the next 12-18 months as it’s urgent enough to change your business to accommodate, but not too far off to be just a dream or thought.
Conversation #2: Go meet with your manager
I know you probably met with your manager recently for your annual review. That meeting was most likely all about you, your skills, behaviors, and the self-development you need to achieve. However, this time, I want you to schedule a “Segmentation Discussion” with your manager.
Many of a salesperson’s problems with time management and selling success can be solved by having these discussions. The key is an open and honest discussion that faces reality as it is and not as others in your company want it to be. It is vital for both you and your manager to come into this meeting with open minds, seek to learn, and work toward a unified segmentation plan when done.
Start with Who: When I ask a salesperson or sales manager, “Who is your targeted market? Who is your ideal customer? Describe the best type of prospect to call on?” too often, they don’t have a clear answer.
Sales problems when you have poor segmentation:
- Salespeople call on everybody and anybody?
- Prospects are confused as to whether or not they are a good fit for your company.
- Salesperson over-focuses on a poor performing set of customers?
- Company over-serves smaller customers and under-serves bigger customers.
- Poor performing products grow old in the warehouse.
The first reason you will struggle in sales is knowing who to be in front of.
This segmentation discussion needs to happen on day 1 and any other day you can have it. Your company is designed for a certain segment of customers. Start your selling career focused on that segment. If you are already selling, then go back and sit down with your manager and have this discussion.
The segmentation process looks at the size of the farm, farming practices, equipment they use, crops grown, purchasing habits, etc. You look at any factor that puts a customer in your ideal type of customer. Then, you overlay that information on a map to segment by geography.
Once you have that group, you look at them based on the products and services they buy from you versus the products they could/should buy from you. This information gives you the potential impact they have on your sales territory or business.
End result:
- Less of a scattered approach
- Your focus is in line with your company’s resources and your customer’s goals
- Increase your confidence
Right now, there is a lull in the storm before the busy spring planting season. You and your customers are attending trade shows and finalizing crop plans. Other than right after harvest, this might be your only time to catch them in a calm moment.
When done with these conversations, you will have a much clearer vision of where to spend your limited time as a salesperson. You can certainly still sell to customers that aren’t in your targeted segment. However, you will now know that those customers aren’t going to get you the best results. You sell to them, but you don’t focus your prospecting efforts on them.
Another key result from these conversations is the alignment of your company’s strengths and goals with your targeted customer segment’s business. This allows you to bring more of your company resources to the sale and tells your targeted segment that your company is dedicated to them.
The ultimate result is the confidence it gives you as a salesperson to help your customers. Every salesperson knows they can sell to anyone who can pay for their products. However, these conversations confirm your confidence that you are the best provider to your ideal segment.
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