Seed World Group’s president Shawn Brook sat down with IPSA president Todd Martin and IPSA executive director Cat Frans to talk frankly about the current state of the seed industry and what’s ahead.
“I was riding along with a sales guy down in the Midwest about a month ago,” said Seed World President Shawn Brook. “I said something about the how he knew his customer, and he said, ‘Shawn, I don’t necessarily just know the customer. I know the acre.’ To come up with solutions based on knowing to that kind of level, that makes for a pretty powerful solution.”
Arguably the biggest single differentiator for independent seed companies is their ability to provide ultra-personalized service. Proper hybrid placement is worth 10+ bushels an acre. For independent seed companies, having ‘the best’ seed isn’t the important factor, it’s being able to confidently deliver ‘the best seed for each specific acre’.
“I spend a shocking amount of my time talking about customer value journeys,” said Brook. “Who isn’t talking about a CVJ right now? We do a lot of work around CVJ mapping, and it becomes such an eye-opening experience for all companies, but especially independent companies. We have this expectation that people are going to move through a buy cycle just because we think we want them to. And they don’t. So what things can we do that help them to move through that buy cycle?”
For independent companies, service is priority one. The good news is that the buy cycle and customer interaction “is much clearer for a company that can control all the pieces, like an independent seed company,” Brook said. “Whereas if you’re [a larger company] handing it off to a minimum wage person to be able to manage that experience, you just don’t have as much control.”
Brook’s second piece of advice is that independent seed companies consider redefining the biggest pieces of how they position themselves in front of their customers.
“Everybody seems to be really poking at me right now to try and figure out what their mission and vision is. And my challenge back to every single one of them is: what if, instead of trying to think of some — pardon my French — BS words that you’re going to throw on a poster to put up on the wall, what if you define your origin story?”
Why does the origin story matter so much? First, because an origin story defines the heart of an independent seed company’s purpose.
“I’ll bet,” says Brook, “in the exercise of defining that origin story, you get to that perfect nugget of why y’all do what you do.”
Second, an authentic origin story resonates with the customer. Many independents have a rich history rooted in family farming or entrepreneurial ventures, giving them an authenticity and rootedness that can’t be replicated by the biggest players.
One of the big weaknesses with the seed sector’s story is that it tends to depend too much on various technological advantages being the primary — and in some cases, the exclusive — marketing avenue, IPSA President Todd Martin and Brook agreed.
“We lean on that,” Martin said. “It became a really solid crutch. That [has been] the only thing we sold: we’ve got a better seed, better opportunity, and away we go. And now, as that playing field starts to level and we don’t necessarily have that advantage in any particular [product], we have to change a little bit of how we sell and how we tell the story.”
He said some companies have embraced that shift, while others have stuck to their old and increasingly tired game plan.
“And what are the five words of a dying organization? ‘We’ve always done it that way’,” Martin said.
Brook agreed: “That can bite you pretty hard.”
(… watch the Stalk Talk excerpt about how an independent seed company can prepare for the new reality)
Stalk Talk BIG QUESTION 1: What’s the word on the street about what’s motivating seed companies?
Stalk Talk BIG QUESTION 2: Do independent seed companies have a role in an Amazon-powered marketing reality?
Stalk Talk BIG QUESTION 4: Five years from now, who’s winning?
