Business Resources Archives - Page 10 of 43 - BioZyme Online Dealer Center

Asking Questions Shows You Care

Are we in the nutrition business or the people business? The question
might be best answered with “both.” We won’t sell much nutrition if we don’t first know about the people or customers who are taking care of the animals who need it. We need to know our customers’ needs and understand exactly what they are trying to achieve.

The best way to get to know your customer or a potential customer is to have a conversation with him or her. Discover what goals they have set forth and listen. You will likely need to lead this conversation because most people, especially in agriculture, don’t like to talk about themselves or share too much information. Form your questions more like a conversation than an interview, seeming more natural than just a list of predetermined questions you have with hopes to make a sale. People don’t always know what they want. However, they usually know what they don’t want. Use these 10 questions to help you start a conversation to attract new customers to your business.

When it comes to (segment of industry person is in) what is your
biggest challenge or hurdle you face when trying to meet your
goals?
Which of your needs are not currently being met?
What products/services do you value the most?
How can the products/services you use be improved?
What is one area of your business you need to improve on? And how can I help you make those improvements?
What features of a product/service make you annoyed?
Would you be willing to invest more in a product/service if you knew the ROI would be greater than what you are currently experiencing?
What opportunities or benefits are you willing to pay more for?
At what price does my product or service provide great value to you?
Have you ever thought, “if only a company like ours could do [BLANK] for me, life would be so much easier?” …Tell me about BLANK and how you would find it useful.

Once you have a conversation started, genuinely listen to the potential
customer’s answers. Does it sound like you have a product or service
that is needed by this person at this time? Great! Then it is time to
start talking about your products or services to make a sale. Don’t
talk about products or services that aren’t relevant but show that you
sincerely care and respect the person’s needs and desires by telling
them how you can help their operation. The number one thing that
attracts new customers is showing respect and that you truly care about
the customer, their goals and their animals.

Letters From Lisa – February 2022

When You Fuel Your Passion, Care Comes Naturally

Passion sneaks up on you and whispers in your ear. It moves you to speak, act, move, create.

Passion is what you’re naturally drawn to, what manifests in your life over and over again, what keeps you up at night and spurs you out of bed in the morning.

Passion is simply the work you love to do. You’re deeply committed to doing this work and doing it well. You get a lot of joy out of it, but it will also come with a lot of struggle and effort—and you know the whole time that it’s worth it.

Passion is high emotion AND high devotion.

Passion is what fuels the best work, not money.

Passion is what motivates us to do the things we love. It is that strong desire that allows you to create something extraordinary—the fuel that keeps the fire burning.

The most certain way to fuel your passion is to connect with and bring value, meaning and joy to the lives of others. So, the more you give, the more you get back. At BioZyme®, we like to call this “Care that Comes Full Circle.”

“Care that Comes Full Circle” is a philosophy that believes that if you truly care for someone or something, that care will eventually come full circle back to you. Or in other words, there will be a natural boomerang effect. However, remember that most boomerang manufacturers guarantee that their boomerangs will return if thrown according to the instructions provided.

Perhaps we need instructions as well to ensure our care comes full circle. I believe these instructions would start with telling us to find our passion, fuel it and then watch this special type of care come naturally.

Naturally meaning if we take care of the animals, they will take care of us by ensuring we get to eat or feel unconditional love. Naturally meaning if we take care of our customers, they will remain loyal, which allows us to continue to have the resources to research new technologies for them. Naturally meaning if we take care of our vendors by communicating and staying loyal to them, they will help us during these horrible supply chain shortages and challenges. And last but certainly not least, naturally meaning if we take care of our employees by being understanding, good communicators and supportive they will passionately fuel the care we are after naturally throughout the company.

BioZyme has always been focused on caring about the producer by helping add value so he/she can see and measure improvements in the herd. “We always promoted healthier animals, but it was never really written it down,” said 40-year retired employee Dennis Delaney. “Although we all (employees) have a livestock background and care about animals, the true passion, compassion and love for animals came into BioZyme’s philosophy when Lisa Norton came to work here.”

I greatly appreciate these words from Dennis, but I hope my leadership drives this same type of care not just to the animals, but also to all of you.

I recently watched a movie (yes it was Hallmark) where a boss told a writer that the weakness in her work was that she had a “wall between your head and your heart.” I thought that was a perfect question to end this article. Do you have that wall? That wall makes it very hard to fuel your passion enough that care comes naturally.

Effective Action: Producer Meetings Can Help You Meet Sales Goals

Producer meetings serve multiple purposes. They are a great way to interact with customers and meet potential customers. They serve as an educational tool and a way to say thank you. However, did you know that they can also help you meet your sales goals?

That’s right. Producer meetings can help you meet or exceed your sales goals. There is no better time to ask for the sale than when customers and potential customers are excited about the products. Perhaps you had your ASM or someone from BioZyme come in and speak at your meeting. Or, even better, maybe you had some local, loyal customers share about their results with the products you offer. That will get the other attendees excited, because if the products work for XYZ Customer who everyone in the tri-county area strives to be like, then it is likely to generate interest in those same products at your meeting.

At the conclusion of the meeting, offer pre-order discounts for products that were discussed at the meeting. Make sure these discounts are attractive enough to make them worthwhile to the customer, but still at a level where you will be profitable. If you are taking bulk orders, the sales should help you meet your sales goals.

Clearly Outline Pre-order Terms: The night of the producer meeting announce the pre-order opportunity to your customers. Make it exciting and let them know they are the first customers to have this opportunity, which makes it even more exclusive. Let them know how much they owe up front, and that they can’t back out of the order once it has been placed.
Offer a Discount: Who doesn’t like a good deal? Offer a discount for their pre- order business! Perhaps their discount is one or two percentages greater than the discount you will run in the store the next week since they took the time to attend your dealer meeting.
Create a Deadline: All good things must come to and end, and so do these specials. Maybe you run the special for two weeks or through the end of the month. Whatever deadline you decide, stick to you, but make sure you announce it to everyone through your advertising and marketing efforts and stick to it. When the pre-order deadline closes, it is over.
Follow up: If you have customers at the Producer Meeting who are on the fence about the products and are not sure about making a pre- order, follow up with them with a simple phone call or better yet, stop in and visit with them. See if they have any questions and if they are ready to try the product. Remind them there is no better time to try it than when it is on sale!

Yes, Producer Meetings might serve as a great source for education and fellowship, but they can also help you meet your goals.

How Can an Inventory Calendar Assist in Marketing Plans?

Developing an inventory calendar can be useful for more than just inventory management. Although managing your inventory is its primary purpose, it can also provide the framework and guide for your marketing plan. It seems practical to align marketing and promotion with the inventory you’re housing and to be prepared to turn seasonal stock as quickly as possible.

Why do you need the marketing plan, anyway? You surely don’t want to set on the inventory you have for long, and you don’t want to be short on inventory for specific seasons of high demand like breeding, weaning or calving. That is why it is vital to have a marketing plan, which often is synergistic with the inventory you maintain.

Create a Marketing Strategy

Before you create a marketing calendar, it’s important to decide on an overall marketing strategy. Some questions to consider include:

What is your estimated marketing budget for the entire year?
Who is your target audience?
How frequently will you promote your company?
When is your peak demand? Factor in different times of the year, such as weaning, calving or fairs.
What kind of media will you use? See the list below. Once you have answered some of the above questions and have started thinking about your strategy, you can start planning your marketing calendar. Consistency is often one of the biggest hurdles for dealers and establishing a marketing plan can give you a guide to follow to help you stay on course and in front of your customers in the most effective way possible. First, establish the list of marketing tools you plan to use to reach your customers. That list may look something like this:

Once you’ve established your product focus for the month, detail your marketing plan to include specific tactics, contacts you need to reach out to, deadlines, etc. If you haven’t, be sure to sign up for Promoboxx to get the most updated BioZyme content. In addition, coordinate with your ASM to have any custom materials designed to help you spread your specific message.

First, establish the list of marketing tools you plan to use to reach your customers.

Next, reference your inventory calendar to see what items you should be promoting for that respective month. Promotions need to be done in advance of your selling season to prepare customers, so it’s always good to set your marketing plans in advance. A general rule of thumb is to begin talking about products six weeks to a month before that buying season really starts to take off. Your customers and prospective customers are studying and researching the next product they’re going to use well in advance of making a purchase.

An inventory calendar will help paint a visual picture of the opportunities you have to focus on, what promotional efforts could be combined or if it is necessary to run multiple campaigns simultaneously. Obviously, margin and/or volume will factor into your focus each month, but don’t leave out ‘door-opener’ products that could generate traffic or interest as well. And don’t forget to have inventory for any cross promotion or upselling opportunities that you plan to promote.

At the end of the month, you should revisit each marketing medium used and analyze its effectiveness so you can make any necessary adjustments for coming months. As you review your marketing calendar, be sure to also revisit your inventory schedule to make sure you have everything on hand so you can meet the demands of your future marketing plans.

Know Your Customers: Discover Their Needs

Customer service is what will set you apart from your competitor. Sure, you might know your customers’ names, their kids’ positions on the high school basketball teams and what kind of horses they have. But do you really understand their animal health and nutrition needs? There is only one way to find out; ask.

Customer service is more than loading products in the back of someone’s pickup or even delivering to their ranch. It has to start with knowing what their needs are. The simplest way to discover their needs is to merely ask. Ask them what they are needing in a breeding mineral for their cows. Find out what their weaning protocol is and suggest including Vita Charge® in their program. Ask them what they need for their sheep or goats. Find out if they have horses and dogs. The key to knowing is to simply ask.

With the logistics of transportation issues causing some added strife in getting some ingredients and moving products to their destination in a timely manner, we suggest that it is never too early to start thinking about finding out about your customers’ needs.

Although BioZyme has significantly reduced its turnaround time on processing orders, we can’t always assume that transportation will

remain as efficient as it has been. Especially with winter weather and the challenges that gives to haulers, it is best to have the products your customer will need in stock.

Planning ahead is always a good idea. If a person isn’t 100% sure
on the products they need or want, it gives you time to explain the differences. It gives the customer time to get their hay samples tested, if that is their desire, and it gives them time to get a ration developed, if that best fits their need.

Providing your customer the tools they need like hay testing, ration development or even basic education is the best way to get to know your customers and offer them with some up-front service from the beginning of your business relationship.

Don’t let your customer service slip from the start of a new partnership. Find out what products they need, how much they need and when they need them by. Follow through with ordering the products to have them in hand before the customer needs them. A happy customer is one who will tell others about the great products and services he or she received, and you will be able to watch your business grow.

Letters From Lisa – January 2022

In business it is easy to get bogged down and to try to work on tons of things. But complexity is potentially the enemy in all that we do.

Now often at the start of a year, we resolve to “fix” things. Luckily a literal and figurative clear-out like that can often help us focus on fewer things more effectively rather than trying to focus on too much at once.

According to Merriam-Webster, keeping it simple means making something easy to understand or do, not going into too much detail, and sticking to the point.

Humans tend to like complexity more than simplicity, especially at work. We often find it hard to believe that simple solutions will actually work. We mistakenly think ‘simple’ is the same as ‘easy’ when they’re actually very different. As we start this new year, let’s work together to keep growing business by trying to keep things simple.

In fact, let’s commit to focus on three things all year:

Know Your Customer

Know Your Checkbook

Tell Everyone

Know Your Customer

Understanding what your customers want collectively and individually is key to growth. Having an in-depth of knowledge – or knowing more than their name, gender and herd size is paramount. As a business, knowing your customers’ kids, hobbies, tastes and interests along with what they watch, listen to and read can be a profitable advantage.

Understanding your customers’ buying behavior is also very important. As a business, you need to comprehend what type of person is most likely to need or want the product or service you provide. These are some of the key questions that you need to ask yourself daily:

What is their reason for purchasing your product or service?
How often are they going to need to buy that product or utilize the service? If you can be proactive with your outreach efforts around the time you know they will purchase, chances are the customer won’t look elsewhere.
Where are they most likely to purchase? If you are a brick-and- mortar business and hear from your customers that they would prefer to order online, then it makes sense to change your business model to include an ecommerce or online ordering component.

Companies that know what their clients want and what they expect can also work on customizing the customer experience to create loyalty and repeat business. Listen to your customers’ feedback and provide sound advice if that’s what they want.

It is crucial to take every advantage to outsmart your competitor. Understanding and building upon your customer knowledge and relationship will put you ahead of the game.

Know Your Checkbook

Keeping accurate records helps keep the doors open. Knowing your records and simply using what they tell you to drive growth makes a business thrive. A business checkbook is often the primary source of record-keeping for many small businesses, according to the Internal Revenue Service. However, for a larger business know your checkbook translates into know your financials. Or in our new simple terms for all of us – know how much money you have and can/should invest in helping the business thrive.

It is ok to ask for help here. It is not ok to never look at your numbers and the money they are generating and also know what they are telling you.

Tell Everyone

The U.S. Small Business Administration recommends, “As a general rule, small businesses with revenues less than $5 million should allocate 7-8% of their revenues to marketing.” This percentage is based on companies that have profits in the 10-12% range.

Whether you run a small business
or a multi-million-dollar corporation, marketing is essential to your profitability and growth. Products and services don’t sell themselves. By ignoring marketing until it’s too late, many small businesses risk hitting a brick wall and quite possibly, failing (just putting it simply).

So, what does tell everyone mean? Simple, tell everyone so everyone tells everyone (Tidbit: you must tell them 7 times before they even hear you). I like to think of the Christian song Pass it On for this concept. If you don’t know the words, it goes like this . . .

“It only takes a spark. To get a fire going. And soon all those around can warm up in its glowing.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if the glowing was your business?

The paper clip. The post-it note. The BioZyme product center. Some of the best ideas in the world are also the simplest. Take some time to give these three simple, focused tactics a try. You might find yourself discovering a fresh lease on life at work. Happy 2022!!

Master Dealer Program Offers Product Info and Marketing

Knowledge is power. At BioZyme®, we want you to have as much knowledge as possible about the products that we offer. That is why we have created the Master Dealer Training Program. The Master Dealer Program is a series of online training modules that allow individuals within your company to learn about each product line and ways to use different products to cross sell and upsell.

In addition to the basic Master Dealer Training Program, there is a Year Two program for those who have completed the first step. In Year Two, dealers will learn about some newer products that have been introduced, as well marketing techniques such as Promoboxx.

“I feel that in the last three days of going through all the training courses, I have learned so much that as a rancher myself, I was not aware of. I look forward to using your products as well. I appreciate the opportunity to learn all this information,” said Missy Rerich, BWI Inside Sales, Schulenburg, Texas.

The Master Dealer program is open to all dealers and is available under “Training” in the Online Dealer Center. Multiple people per dealership can participate in the Mater Dealer program and can work at their own pace to watch the short educational videos and take the quizzes to pass the program. Once all qualifications are met, your dealership will be designated as a Master Dealer on the Dealer Locator map and receive special signage for the store. Each person who finishes the program will receive special BioZyme Master Dealer apparel so customers can easily identify those who have gone the extra mile to provide excellent knowledge and service. Additional awards are given to those who also complete the Year Two program.

The Master Dealer Program is simple. It is a free way to grow your business by providing you with the product knowledge you and your employees need to help sell the BioZyme lines of products. Engage in the Master Dealer Program today. Knowledge is power. Power is watching your business grow.

Steps Dealers Can Take to Grow Their Sales

If you want to grow your business, you have to move forward and upward, sometimes doing things outside of your comfort zone. Abraham Lincoln once said, “I may be a slow walker, but I never walk back.” It’s ok to grow slowly, but it’s not ok to go backwards in your growth!

At BioZyme, we want to see our dealers succeed and grow. That’s why we’ve provided the tools and programs to help you grow. Let’s review.

Engage in Promoboxx

Remember that we said a majority of farmers, 94%, have a smart phone or cell phone. A big share of them also have access to social media. For those who are not active on social media, they probably have a spouse or kid who is on social media, whose accounts they “creep” or scroll through periodically. Because we know not everyone has time to create social media posts, BioZyme has created social media posts that align with its national marketing messages and put those into Promoboxx, and easy-to-use platform to help you create awareness of your company with BioZyme information on your social channels.

Promoboxx is free to BioZyme dealers to use, and provides you access to various pre-created posts to share on your social media accounts. As a dealer, you can use the entire post or various assets of it like the copy or just the photo. Content is updated regularly to keep it fresh for you. To learn more or get started with Promoboxx, visit www. biozymedealermktg.com.

Quarterly Dealer Mailers

Direct mail is a great way to get a message in front of customers. Each quarter, BioZyme creates a message with a focus on one product that is timely for that particular production cycle/time of year. If the dealer sends its customer mailing list to BioZyme, via an excel spreadsheet, it will prepare the mailer to send to those customers, free of charge. And, if you have your customer mailing list split by species or product lines, that is even better. That way when it comes time to send a Vitalize mailer, those with sheep or goats won’t get the mail.

Watch your email and the Dealer Facebook Group for sign up information for this program.

Product Educational Opportunities

In addition to having a product focus for the customer mailer during each quarter, the BioZyme Team also provides a live training for dealers each quarter around that same topic. These trainings take place on the Dealer Facebook Group. These sessions are also recorded, to allow more dealers to watch on their own time.

In addition to dealer trainings, any time a new product is released, a training is conducted and a new product video is put into the Online Dealer center (ODC).

Of course, the Master Dealer, is always a great way to learn about the products and selling techniques. Look for some enhancements to his program in the coming year!

Get Your Store Ready

Nothing is more discouraging than going to a store, looking for a product, and not being able to find it because there is no signage, or it is buried behind some other irrelevant product. If it is weaning time, get your Vita Charge® products on an end cap with signage that promotes stress recovery.

Upselling and cross selling are great techniques. Keep gel products on the sales counter and when a customer buys Vitalize® Equine Digest More Plus, be sure to suggest they might also like the Vitalize Equine Gel.

Signage and product placement will help you sell products in your store more often than you think. You can’t sell what the customers can’t see.

We’ve provided you four simple steps to help you market your business. Follow these steps and watch your business grow!

Product Knowledge Helps Build Trust

When your customers come to you looking for a product, they are typically also looking for a solution. Solutions are answers to their challenges, so if you want to make the sale, you must be prepared with the answers, or the information they need about a product. The number one way to make a sale is by building trust. The best way to build trust is to provide reliable, accurate information about the products you are offering.

One recent online survey of consumers showed that the number one expectation of the stores they visit was knowledge of the products sold in the store. If you and your staff are knowledgeable about the products, that is meeting the customers’ expectations and the first step needed to build trust. At BioZyme, we know how important that trust is to making the sale; that is why we have created multiple ways to ensure the product information is available to you when and how you want it so you can share it with your customers.

Online Dealer Center

All product information is available at your fingertips at the Online Dealer Center (ODC). Find key selling points, ingredients, feeding rates and ordering information for any of the BioZyme products your customer might be looking for. Even if they are not sure the exact name of a product, you can search by species, program or product line, and a variety of products will appear from your search.

Literature

The Marketing Team creates a wide variety of brochures and educational materials across all brands. From one-page sell sheets to tri-fold brochures to extensive product guides that give specific details about every product, these colorful, easy-to-use pieces are available to you to have at your dealership. They can be sourced two ways. First, you can print them yourself from the ODC by selecting the Marketing menu and dragging down to “Marketing & Sales Aids.” Or, if you would like to request hard copies of these brochures, drag down to “Marketing Requests” under the Marketing menu and follow the steps outlined to make a request.

Product Videos

Some people learn better through video or hearing a presentation. For that purpose, a quick promotional video has been created for each product to share the highlights of the uses and benefits. These product videos can be found on the product pages on any of the brand websites or by viewing a product in the Product Center found in the ODC. These are great to be able to play in-store for your customers and each video is 30-seconds to less than two minutes in length.

Master Dealer Program

The Master Dealer Training Program is an online comprehensive training program that provides all employees at a dealership with the information that they need to talk about the products with potential customers.

At BioZyme we want to be proactive in providing you the answers you need so you can build trust and provide your customers solutions. What other ways would you find it helpful to receive information to educate customers and potential end-users about our products? Let us know! You can always reach out to the Outreach Support Center or your ASM to let them know what other methods you would like to see used for providing education and information to you about products.

Marketing Focuses on Driving Customers to our Dealers

The Marketing Team serves many functions at BioZyme; however, its primary objective is to connect prospective end-users with dealers in their area. They do this by driving traffic to the Dealer Locator on the website so customers can find the products they need to solve their challenges close to home and begin building relationships.

How do customers and potential customers find the Dealer Locator? The Marketing Team creates awareness and demand for all of BioZyme’s product lines through various tactics. Everything the Marketing Team creates from a national, regional or local level has connecting the dealer to the end-user in mind. Initiatives include social media posts across all brands, digital advertising with leading industry partners, print, radio, television commercial, events, partnerships with respected industry partners and more. Every media piece includes a call to action such as clicking a link, scanning a QR code or visiting the website to encourage the viewer to learn more about the specific product and find a dealer near them.

The Marketing Team doesn’t do its job blindly. Just like the Sales Team sets a sales goal each month, Marketing also has a goal for reaching potential and current customers and driving them to the Dealer Locator. This goal of 5% is met or exceeded for every brand, as Lisa talked about in this month’s letter. For example, Vitalize Equine had more than 6,800 clicks on the dealer locator, which was nearly a 12% conversion rate. However, a more aggressive brand like VitaFerm had 26,000 clicks or a 27% conversion rate!

Hitting that goal is very important to ensuring what the marketing the team is doing is effective and ultimately driving traffic into your store, and the data is evaluated regularly so adjustments can quickly be made, if necessary. Since the Team knows that the customers are going to the Dealer Locator and reaching out to Dealers, it wants you, the dealer, to have the most current information listed on the website.

There is a Dealer Locator on every brand website as well as the main biozymeinc.com site. Once on the locator, end-users can enter their zip code to find you, their local dealer, including your basic contact information such as name, address, phone number, fax number, email and website. The more information we have from you, the more we can provide. In addition, the locator also lists the product lines you carry. Finally, if you or someone within your dealership has completed the Master Dealer program, that is also designated, with a note that the “Master Dealer is certified as having extensive product knowledge and many products available,” giving you an added competitive edge.

Marketing to the end-user pays. The Marketing Team works tirelessly to make sure customers know they can reach out to the dealer network wherever the customer is located and find someone knowledgeable about the BioZyme brands. Let us drive the customers to you.