Everyone is always being asked to ‘do more with less’. It’s been the buzzword for the last few years, and in today’s ag economy, it’s not going away anytime soon. During the 2023 Partner Summit, Craig Patty, VP of Sales & Marketing at River Valley Cooperative, Greg Culp, VP of Sales & Marketing at Mercer Landmark, and Cassandra Morari, COO at The Rack, shared their take on this topic. From simply having access to information to cross-selling and customer segmentation, the panelists discuss different digital strategies for boots-on-the-ground teams to use.  

Setting sellers up for success

With more diverse account set-ups, generational farm transitions, and narrowing margins, the job of an ag retail salesperson is only growing more complex. There are many variables to keep track of and many opportunities that may be known, but often forgotten amid busy, daily tasks. It is crucial to give your team a single tool that complements their routine from the field to office.

Our sellers are extremely busy. There is no downtime in this business anymore, period. You go from seed fertilizer, prepay into spraying fungicide and here we go again. Helping them, supporting them be successful is really where the portals come into play.
– Craig Patty, RVC

By implementing a platform that connects different systems into a unified customer view, ag retail teams can quickly see the information they need and collaborate more effectively.

We began with the notes feature. It’s a tool for you to get better at your job. It’s a great place to set a reminder to call them back next Friday or to go and review before your next call.
– Greg Culp, Mercer Landmark

When the tools are designed to make the sellers job easier and break down silos, they can do what they do – serve customers in a high-value capacity.  

Simplifying cross-selling by turning data into action

Providing additional value to customers generally means new sales opportunities in the form of increasing wallet-share. Often the hurdle to cross-selling and strategic growth strategies is the lack of data or lack of usable data. To put that simply, most struggle with knowing where to start. Ag retail teams need customer insights and data that’s not just at their fingertips, but is actually actionable.

Our approach is figuring out which customers aren’t we selling to or what gaps there are. Now we know who isn’t buying from all of the categories and our sellers know who they should be calling on.
– Cassandra Morari, The Rack

When somebody is making a fertilizer purchase or an energy purchase, they should be making a grain sale to lock in a margin right? We spend a lot of time cross-selling and collaborating as a group.
– Craig Patty, RVC

With AgVend, ag retailers can simplify how their teams identify customer opportunities without sifting through endless data or manipulating complex spreadsheets. The real-time access to customer insights helps sellers recommend products or solutions more effectively, making their job easier and improving the customer experience by offering relevant and useful suggestions tailored to their needs.

If they’ve bought A and B, but haven’t bought C, that’s an easy way to target. It’s good for them because it’s the right product, the right mix, and it’s good for us because we’re going to sell a little bit more.
– Greg Culp, Mercer Landmark

It’s crazy to think that we could double our business without adding a customer.
– Craig Patty, RVC

Cross-selling isn’t the only strategy to meet the diverse needs of customers. Enter “segmentation”.  

Synergizing marketing and sales efforts

Enhancing the customer experience and increasing sales conversations starts with listening to what the customers want and meeting them where they’re at. While being in the field is invaluable, sellers can’t be everywhere all of the time. Digital touch points can fill in those gaps.

Digital marketing is really important. Especially if you think about the next generation of growers, they’re spending a lot of time on their phone or their iPad. So we want to make sure [marketing] it’s complementary to what our sales teams are doing in-person.
– Greg Culp, Mercer Landmark

There is nothing worse than getting alerts or messages that don’t pertain to us. Personalized digital touchpoints enable ag retail teams to tailor interactions to individual preferences, fostering stronger connections. For customers, this means a more engaging experience with targeted messaging and recommendations, leading to better satisfaction and loyalty.

Segmentation allows us to communicate differently based on the customer. That’s what I like about the portal. You can mix it up. It’s not that same email coming at you. It can be a push notification, a text message. You can change the banner that the customer is looking at when they log into the portal. There’s a lot of different ways you can go with it.
– Craig Patty, RVC

It gives our sales team something to be more specific with. Especially the younger, more junior sales reps, it gives them something to follow up on. Hey, did you see this?
– Cassandra Morari, The Rack

These personalized efforts soften the beach for sellers. By providing relevant, valuable and targeted marketing to their growers it makes conversations smoother and more impactful. Which ultimately translates to increased revenue.  

Strategic marketing support opportunities

Most ag retailers are juggling several different sales initiatives all at once. Many of which are related to hitting targets with their preferred suppliers. A growing trend across the industry is leveraging manufacturer relationships to support product-specific marketing and sales initiatives. With the right tools, ag retailers have the power to offer a premium marketing opportunity to suppliers. Tailored customer touchpoints that come from a valued-source where growers can actually purchase, aka ag retail teams, are much more effective than traditional channels.

Our suppliers didn’t have a pulse check before. We didn’t know how many people read the emails. We didn’t even know what the messaging should be. So, we offered our suppliers this two year marketing package where they could pick which product and we could segment customers. We saw a significant level of revenue and their sales increased, too.
– Cassandra Morari, The Rack

Instead of putting dollars towards a magazine or something they can’t track, they can track their investment through the portal.
– Craig Patty, RVC

9 out of 10 AgVend partner retailers are receiving supplier support. The collaboration is proven to be mutually beneficial with outcomes that strengthen relationships, increase awareness and drive sales through digital marketing. In fact, AgVend partners who are executing joint campaigns see an average 80% increase in sales year over year.  

Step-by-step success

The journey of cross-selling and empowering sellers with digital tools may seem daunting at first. But the good news is you don’t have to change everything at once to find success.

Just pick one thing, pick one initiative. Get your staff in the app, learn how to use it and just try one thing. It’s not that scary.
– Cassandra Morari, The Rack

We struggled for so long to get it right until we partnered with AgVend in 2020. The key thing is just getting started.
– Craig Patty, RVC

ust get started. Embrace change and don’t be surprised if your whole organization isn’t as excited as you are. Be patient and have some accountability. You can’t just hope it happens.
– Greg Culp, Mercer Landmark

Start with evaluating the tech stack and capabilities in place today. Then focus on internal adoption and get teams to use those tools. Lastly, supplement sales efforts with digital marketing. A successful strategy navigates the complexities of modern sales and with good digital systems that help teams become more efficient, enable opportunities, and strengthen relationships.