One of my old pals who owns a regional turf supply company told me recently, “There are two kinds of salespeople in our business…consultants and order-takers. The difference between the two is knowledge and passion.”
If you’re a turf rep who’s reading this right now, I suspect you fall into the consultative sales category. You care deeply about your customers, you have strong relationships beyond just occasionally dropping a dozen donuts by a customer’s shop, and you have armed yourself with advanced agronomic expertise. You are a partner to your customers, not a vendor.
When our friends at BASF Turf asked us to develop a new way for them to support you – their distributor sales team – we jumped at the chance to create this publication and develop other educational tools you’ll see soon. Why? Two reasons:
First, we’re a lot like you…we want to be partners with our clients instead of vendors. We’re at our best when we’re collaborating with companies and trying to create solutions together rather than just selling them some ad pages. Sure, we won’t turn down an order, but it’s way more fun to create something new together.
Second, you guys deserve it.
Good salespeople are the backbone of this business. Modern agronomy is incredibly complex and today’s business environment means even more scrutiny and more pressure to create more with less. You guys are the key to that formula.”
Good salespeople are the backbone of this business. Modern agronomy is incredibly complex and today’s business environment means even more scrutiny and more pressure to create more with less. You guys are the key to that formula. Smart supers know they can’t do it without you.
And I’m on record as saying that interrelationship between manufacturers, turf suppliers and superintendents will be even more critical in future. Labor is increasingly scarce and expensive, there’s a growing shortage of talented young turfheads in the pipeline and clubs will increasingly be challenged to provide awesome conditions that attract and retain members.
I cringe every time I hear a turhead joke about sales being “the dark side” or how reps have it easy. That’s crap. That’s like a NASCAR driver discounting the value of his pit crew or pro athlete saying he doesn’t need trainers or coaches. Good supers understand that this is a team business and their local distribution partners are critical players in their success.
One measure of that can be found in the results of GCI’s State of the Industry report. We asked supers about who they buy from and how much they buy during EOP. The results suggest that more than half of all supers buy more than half of all their soft goods during EOP from one partner. In short, courses are continuing to consolidate more of their spend with their best distribution partners. Despite the fact that there are an abundance of people to buy chemicals from, most supers are buying from fewer reps. That’s good news if you’re the high-value, consultative salesperson they trust and rely on most.
So how do you get to be “that guy” who commands the respect and the spend of your territory’s best customers? How do you maximize your earnings through programs brought to you by BASF and others? How can you be a top gun rep?
Well, hopefully you agree that the information we’re providing via this partnership with BASF will help you do just that. But, we’re only as good as the advice we get from you since, in this case, you’re our customer. Let me know what you think about this publication and what other topics you’d like us to cover. We’d love to make this as valuable as possible for you.
I’ll wrap this up with one final thought: never forget that the best thing about this business is that we’re brothers in turf. If you treat your customer like a fellow member of the fraternity, they’re likely to return the favor. Happy selling!