You've Had It Too Easy

I'm going to be straight with you.

The wind has been behind your back for the last 2 or so years at least, and making sales should have been relatively easy.

Almost order taking with ease.

You used scarcity and FOMO to get the deal done.

And most of the time it worked.

But the tide has changed.

I walked round a fairly slow going Central District Fieldays a few weeks agoand witnessed some pretty sad sights.?

| saw reps talking to themselves because they had so few farming clients or enquiries to talk to.

Foot traffic and numbers seemed low.

For most it was a classic case of a "hit n' hope / please pick me ?? " strategy.

Some - but not all - exhibitors I knew swore it was it and showed me some decent order forms from qualified leads.

Good stuff.

But what about the other 362 days of the year where they could be automatically, predictably and reliably generating leads day in day out?

Like your farmers, you need a system.

Planting the same paddock with the same variety year after year won't produce the same yields.

You'll get the law of diminishing returns.

You have to put in place a policy of rotation.

You test a few paddocks with a new variety to see how it goes.

The same with your marketing.

Don't keep blindly doing the same thing expecting a different result.

You'll only get the law of diminishing returns.

Try some email automation with a specific lead magnet like a free book, report, cheat sheet or calculator.

Something that starts a conversation, fills your pipeline and helps you earn the sale.

The beauty about online is people give themselves away by their searches.

Their questions give their intent away.

Farmers are researching their potential purchases far more than they used to at a touch of a button.

They are consulting far more touch points whether they be physical (neighbour) or digital (website/customer reviews).

You need to be found sometimes more than you finding them.

There's zero point having a nice, branded brochureware site that doesn't collect any customer data.

They click off and you're left with nothing to show for that visit.

Same as if they walked into your branch or dealership and left without you getting any information from them.

Or you could focus on more granularity with farmer fieldays using specific casted farmers on specific chosen subjects that address a specific pain point.

We all know farmers buy from farmers and it's often your best bet.

Or you could write for a local trade publication.?

Take a position, offer some help and share some expertise that helps position you as a trusted authority.

We call it pre-sale positioning.

There are so many options for you.

We've done most of them and know what works and what doesn't so you don't have to make any mistakes or waste your hard-earnt money.

And it sickens me to my stomach to see good rural companies suffer unnecessarily if they only knew how.

More often that not it's all about the execution.

I see poor rural marketing teams and managers blame the medium rather than the mediocre message they're putting out there.

Their offer doesn't point to a present pain or reduce enough risk.

The compliant newsletter they have to put out isn't newsworthy so they pollute that very channel and lose it as a result.

Farmers are exposed to a blizzard of marketing messages so mediocre or generic won't cut it.

They're doing their best to filter out almost all the noise that's out there.

You have to better and dig deeper.

Adapt or slowly die a slow death.

You don't need Darwin for that.

+++

I am on a mission to help rural business owners, managers and reps get the results and respect they deserve.

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