Retailers from Iowa and Minnesota converged on Iowa State University's campus in December for the first of four seminars titled Managing Customer Knowledge developed by Apply and AgKnowlogy Inc. The seminars are sponsored by Syngenta Crop Protection, with additional supporting sponsorship from Case IH, Syngenta Seeds (NK Brands) and Helena Chemical Company.

Retailers focused on marketing to customers over the next five years. They received information on how to use innovative tools and training to identify opportunities for business growth by identifying individual customer needs. They also learned about a significant segmentation study on how to analyze growers and put them into different types of sales categories.

Here's what two attendees said about the seminars:

Troy Koehler, New Century FS, Grinnell, IA: “The biggest thing for me was the review of the SMART [Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results focused, and Time bound goals] criteria and hard questions. It was a great review for knowing to have a pre-call plan and act on it and have measurable goals and think about how you set those goals.

“The grower segmentation presentation was great. As retailers, we need to analyze our customers on every entity that they purchase from us. For example, the same grower will price more on chemicals, but not as much on fertility or precision ag.

“I thought the information with the Rainmaker [prospecting] report can be very valuable. I also like the grower report card, which was new to me. The information on segmentation was excellent because what you covered helps us succeed in our business better.”

Jeff Hagen, Hwy Ag Service, Morristown, MN: “Overall, it was great. It was a lot of numbers and paralysis by analysis, but that was good. We need to look at our customers from a bronze, gold and silver degree. I'm fairly new here. Some of these guys keep it all in their heads.

“Number one, we need this information to protect the company as far as knowing our customers. Secondly, as manager, how do I gauge our success if I don't know my customers? If you don't know where you're at, how do you know where to go? This program is a way to make people accountable.

“It's also good to interact with other dealers. You pick up a lot of stuff on break time or social time. It's an exchange of ideas and it works.”

Additional seminars are scheduled for late January in Indianapolis, IN, early February in Lincoln, NE, and a final seminar in February in Bloomington, IL.

Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2007 Penton Media, Inc.