Dealer Spotlight: Dakota Mill and Grain

Helping Others Helps Make the Sale

In a world where one size does not fit all, it is vital to provide customers with the individual information and resources they need to succeed. Paul Jons, location manager for the Dakota Mill & Grain in Murdo, South Dakota, said getting to know his customers and helping them with their challenges makes them more receptive to him. He puts forth the effort to really know his customers and understand their specific challenges.

“There’s no such thing as a cookie cutter program when it comes to feed because neighbors could live two miles apart and do things completely different. So, to be able to take the time and listen to both those guys and get them on different tracks on where they need to go, not only helps me as a dealer, it helps them succeed so they tell their friends, and their friends tell their friends,” Jons said.

Service with a smile is something Jons picked up when visiting the local feed store with his dad and grandpa as a child, and he has carried on that tradition today. However, he goes beyond that smile, to offer education and options to producers on the products that can best help them achieve their production goals. One thing he likes about being a BioZyme dealer is the wealth of information available to him to share with his customers, both from the website and the Online Dealer Center.

“I feel like I have good information to pass along to my customers. Anything I don’t know, I can go to the website and find in about 10 minutes. I also go to the Online Dealer Center all the time to fact check and get pricing,” he said.

Jons became a BioZyme dealer more than a year ago, after feeding the VitaFerm® products on his own operation for two years. As a fifth-generation dairy farmer, he was thrilled to discover a beef cattle mineral with prebiotics and chelated minerals, similar to what they had fed their dairy cows.

“I like the quality and proven performance of the product. So, when I first discovered there was a product out there that is similar to what we do with milk cows but targeted toward beef cows, I got really excited about it. Not a lot of people realize how important chelated minerals are in their breed-back program. Coming from a dairy farm, we used chelated minerals for 10 to 15 years, so being able to pass that information on to these guys Is worth a million bucks to a lot of them,” he said.

He hosted his first BioZyme producer meeting in mid-December and credits those gatherings as another great way to provide information to a group all at once from outside experts. Producer meetings also provide opportunities to learn from others and think about deeper questions that they wouldn’t think of during a trip to their feed store.

“Producers have more than ample opportunities to raise their hand and ask more serious questions that I can’t answer. Or they come into get mineral on a daily basis they are more concerned about weather, weaning calves or moving cows to a different pasture. When in a producer meeting, and we start talking about specific products, they say instead of weaning my calves this year, maybe I should try the Gain Smart® program and keep them for 45 days” Jons said.

When it comes to selling a product, Jons exemplifies care that comes full circle. He’s there to help his customers succeed before he is there to only sell them a mineral product. Here’s why.

“The reward is equal to the work you’re willing to put into it. If you don’t want to learn and read and get the knowledge behind you to be able to explain to people why this product is good for them, why this product will work for them, there’s no point in doing it. Be enthusiastic about it. People see you care, they feel that you care about them as well, and that you’re not just trying to shove a bag of mineral down their throat. I believe in this product because it is superior and is going to help you on your farm.”

Effective Easy Breeding with VitaFerm® Concept•Aid®!

Getting cows bred and keeping them bred can be a challenge, but those are the first crucial steps to herd profitability. Your customers need to consider their herds nutritional needs through every step of production in order to achieve the reproductive success they want to meet.

VitaFerm® Concept•Aid® is a line of vitamin and mineral supplements for beef cattle formulated to promote effective, easy breeding when fed 60 days pre-calving through 60 days post-breeding. Concept•Aid is a mineral specifically formulated for reproductive success that contains high levels of Vitamin E for reproductive tract repair, organic trace minerals for more stability and higher bioavailability and Amaferm®, a precision-based prebiotic that impacts intake, feed digestibility and nutrient absorption for optimum health and performance. Increased nutrient absorption and digestion leads to heavier calves that gives your customers performance that pays.

How good were your customers’ conception rates this year?

Get to Know Your Customers and Their Needs!

Be sure to understand each of your customer’s individual challenges to help them achieve reproductive success and profitability in their herd. Is their calving window longer than they would like? Too many open cows due to poor breed back? Low-quality forages available due to extreme weather patterns this past year? Find out what they are facing and recommend a VitaFerm Concept•Aid for them.

ChallengeHow to Relevantly Position VitaFerm Concept•Aid
Poor breed back rates leading to more open cows.Reduce your risk by investing in the Concept•Aid mineral program to maximize your reproductive efficiency. Leverage the power of organic trace minerals, high levels of vitamin E and selenium to promote optimized fertility and quick reproductive tract repair to ensure a faster breed back.
Constant weather challenges led to tightened budgets, and often times, mineral and supplementation programs were cut leading to thin cows, which resulted in poor conception rates and longer calving seasons.Reduce your labor and length of calving season with the help of Concept•Aid. You can trust the Amaferm® advantage to deliver more energy for reproductive success while elevated vitamin E levels lend to faster reproductive tract repair and quicker breed back to shorten your calving window, helping to maximize your efforts.
Irregular weather patterns have resulted in low-quality forages and winter pastures.Don’t let winter grazing limit your performance. Let Concept•Aid help maximize digestibility and absorption with the power of Amaferm! Choose the phosphorous level that suits your forage best to help promote milk production and higher calf weaning weights.
Soft markets and fewer calves on the ground will require higher weaning weights to differentiate and stay profitable come sale time.Allow Concept•Aid products to deliver optimal digestive health and nutrition through the power of Amaferm resulting in performance that pays. Through increased absorption and elevated levels of phosphorous, you can expect an 11% increase in calf weaning weights above the national average (Source: VitaFerm Reproductive Success Report)

Sharing Knowledge Helps Grow Business

In today’s world, you aren’t just a feed dealer, mineral supplier or farm and home store. You are more than a business. You and your sales staff become industry experts. Experts that your customers rely on for their nutritional advice as it relates to their herd, flock, show stock, horses and dogs. That’s why it is more important than ever before to have knowledge available and ready to share.

According to Shep Hyken, New York Times and Wall Street Journal best selling author and customer engagement expert, 96% of customers will leave a business because of one bad experience. These experiences could range from poor customer interaction, untimely responses, lack of response, rude personnel, consistently being out of stock on a product or never showing appreciation.

In a recent presentation, Hyken offered several tips to help create customer amazement. The central idea to creating customer amazement is to be better than average. When it comes to customer service, no one wants just “fine” service, they want excellent service. Hyken said fine is an acronym that stands for: Fake smile, Insincere feedback, Never coming back, Emotionless (business is dead to the customer). Let’s explore the five ways he recommends providing customer amazement.

  1. Create moments of magic. Make sure that you provide the information and education that the customer is looking for. If they ask a specific question, answer that question directly, not five other questions and don’t beat around the bush. Share another customer testimonial or if you have used the product, share about that positive experience too. Customers want to hear about why something will work for them and their program.
  2. Embrace feedback. Both negative and positive feedback can be good things to help your business grow and share information with others. For example, BioZyme® heard your feedback about the paper mineral bags. A positive change was made due to that feedback. If you hear positive feedback about a product, you can use that to your advantage when talking to others about that specific product.
  3. Communication is key. When providing your customers with valuable information, remember communication is a two-way process. Provide information. Ask the extra questions. Listen for their concerns or challenges. Address their specific needs. Don’t talk circles around them, and don’t do all the talking, but always make sure to be sincere and listen to what they need.
  4. Offer convenient solutions. Perhaps you have all your product information on your website, but not all your customers have internet access. One of the best ways to lay out the information is in a FAQ document. What frequent questions do your customers have? Create the answers for those and answer them in one document and have them readily available to distribute when talking about a product or time in the production cycle.
  5. Show appreciation. You rely on your customers for your success just as much as they rely on you. Be sure to thank them for their patronage and for believing in you and your products.

Providing information is an ongoing process, and mastering the process is ongoing as well. Be sure you and your employees understand the above steps and the importance of providing education and information. Customer amazement is an important step to customer retention. Continue to educate your customers and watch your business grow!

Look to BioZyme Resources for Education and Information

As a feed and supplement dealer, your customers look to you as an expert in animal feeding and nutrition when it comes to helping them achieve their goals. Do you feel like you are armed with the proper information and knowledge you need to help the producers who ask you questions? Do you have the answers to the questions they seek? Are there existing resources to help you when you need them?

If you answered “no” to any of those questions, or if you are just curious on how to be more informed and prepared to answer your customer questions, read on.

BioZyme® understands how important its Dealer Network is. That’s why we have prepared the tools to help you succeed when it comes to providing the best and most accurate information to your customers. The more information you can provide and in a timely manner, the more your customers will value you, and be more likely to return.

VISION

If you are reading this, you know that we care about getting timely information to dealers each month. We strive to provide you relevant product information and tips on how to position those products, give you sales and marketing tips, general business development guides and update you on company happenings.

Dealer Facebook Page

The BioZyme Dealer Facebook is a great space to share ideas with other dealers, see information about product launches, and keep current with happenings. Regular posts make this a great place to see information about live educational events and other news from the company.

Master Dealer Program

The Master Dealer Program was created to provide you and your employees the opportunity to learn more about BioZyme products, how to use them, how to market them, and how they can help the customer succeed. Multiple people from a dealership can complete the program to each learn about the products. Sign in to the Online Dealer Center to complete these quick learning tools today!

People

Each dealer should feel good knowing he or she has an Area Sales Manager and an Outreach Support Dealer Coordinator that they can contact for help. These people are a phone call or email away to help you with your needs. These staff members can also put you and your customers in touch with nutritionists to answer questions and help with hay testing services.

Online Dealer Center

Perhaps one of the most comprehensive places you can find the information you need to help you and your customers succeed 24/7 is the Online Dealer Center. Once inside the ODC, there are multiple tools and resources for you to use. You can ask questions and search for answers on the message board, place and track orders, learn more about the products in the Product Center, calculate LTL shipping costs, order swag and literature and download and print literature. Let’s explore some of the great resources available when you log in.

Product Center

The product center contains all the information you need about each product including selling points, feeding directions, ingredients, spec sheets and much more. It can be searched many ways to easily find the products your customers need. To access the Product Center, go to Products > View Products.

Message Board

Ask questions and receive feedback directly from the BioZyme staff on a variety of topics including nutrition, product information and more. To access the message board, visit Training > Message Board.

LTL Freight Quote

Receive an estimated freight quote for your order by filling out the LTL Freight Calculator located under Products > LTL Freight Calculator.

Literature and SWAG

All of our literature along with branded apparel and merchandise is available through the ODC. Literature is available to download in PDF format at Marketing > Marketing & Sales Aides. To have printed literature shipped to you or to order any of the swag, fill out the Literature Request or the Merchandise Request under Marketing > Marketing Requests.

Information is power. The more information you can provide your customers, the more they will rely on you to help them succeed. Good, reliable information builds trust. Trust builds relationships, and relationships are the foundation of a successful business.

Letters From Lisa – January 2021

Part of the customer experience includes product education, and it’s up to you to provide it. An educated customer is more likely to be a customer in the future. A customer desiring to use knowledge to learn about a product is entirely dependent upon how effectively knowledge is delivered to them by you, yes you.

Barring the rare customer who will dedicate significant time and effort to teaching themselves a product, most customers need guidance to help them gain confidence in using a product. Therefore, the effectiveness of the learning content provided is crucial.

Once you accept the fact that helping people get to know how to use products is a key to sales, it’s easy to see why customer education influences customer experience. Few things or products are so intuitive that they require zero instruction. All customer education efforts must remember four key points to be effective.

Accessibility

Don’t compromise access to learning your product because the content isn’t accessible enough for people without advanced computer skills. When product learning requires lots of effort and skills to access, one deprives scores of people of the ability to learn how to use the product offering. And if they can’t figure out how to use it well, they’ll simply go find another product that does provide the learning they desire.

Engagement

This is the part of the customer education process that will either cause excitement or indifference. Focused, concise bits of content that breaks the learning down into smaller pieces, makes the content much easier to follow so learners are more easily able to engage. This also helps you as you’re equally able to assess what works and what needs improvement in your learning content. People rarely stick around if they’re not engaged in what they’re learning. They’re already interested in your product (why they’re trying to learn), now it’s your responsibility to teach them in a manner that attracts their attention, engages them and delivers useful instruction in an easily digestible manner.

Care

Even with accessibility and engagement, the recipe for customer education isn’t complete. You must also deliver content that is unintimidating. Every bit of care you put into your learning content and customer education is telling your customers how much you care about their success.

Fun

Learning should be fun. Even if the learners are lacking motivation, lessons fused with laughter can be highly effective. Not only are they entertaining, but humor has actually been seen to boost retention significantly! By sandwiching humor between instruction and repetition, one can learn incredibly fast while still having a laugh. You have an obligation to your customers to be a good teacher.

You have an obligation to your own company’s success to be a good teacher. Because it’s not only about putting together a few presentations so people can get the gist of your products. It needs to be your goal to build learning content that works so well that your customers are excited about how good they are at using your products. When people are good at something, they talk about it. That team that buys your products and is excited about how great they are at using it will become product evangelists.

CHANGES COMING IN JANUARY 2021

NEW PRODUCTS

  • Vita Charge® HydraBoost™ RTU is now available as a ready to use formula in a 2.5 gallon jug.

PRODUCT UPDATES

  • In December, the sewn in tag was changed to a printed label for all non-pelleted products.
  • On January 1, 2021 we will be changing from Altosid (1-fly claim) to Clarify (4-fly claim) in all of our IGR products. The registration process of the new ingredient requires product name changes to several products:
    • VitaFerm® Concept•Aid® 5/S IGR will now be VitaFerm® Concept•Aid® 5/S with Clarifly®
    • VitaFerm® HEAT® IGR will now be VitaFerm® HEAT® with Clarifly®
    • VitaFerm® Concept•Aid® 5/S CTC 3G IGR will now be VitaFerm® Concept•Aid® 5/S CTC 3G with Clarifly®
    • To prepare for this transition, we will not be manufacturing IGR products in December 2020 or January 2021 but will have product on the floor on a first come, first served basis.

ORDERING UPDATES

  • Starting January 1, 2021, when creating an order that will be a customer pickup, instead of defaulting to “I want it as soon as possible,” the order system will now require you to select a date that you are going to pick up the order. Any orders that are not picked up within 5 days may incur additional handling fees.

SHIPPING UPDATES

  • FREIGHT CLAIM REMINDER: Please remember that you MUST notate what was damaged and sign the delivery receipt in order to submit a freight claim. The freight companies deny our claims when the delivery receipt is not signed, and we cannot provide a credit on denied claims.

DISCONTINUED PRODUCTS

  • On January 1, 2021, VitaFerm® Cattleman’s Blend™ CTC 3G and VitaFerm® Cattleman’s Blend™ CTC 3G IGR will be discontinued due to declining sales.

NEW EMPLOYEES

  • Mark Holmen has joined BioZyme as the Area Sales Manager for Wisconsin and Northern Minnesota.



CHANGES COMING IN FEBRUARY 2021

PRODUCT UPDATE

  • On February 1, BioZyme will launch a new brand, Backyard Boost®. Backyard Boost is a line of natural products that are purposefully crafted to support the health, wellbeing and productivity of poultry. Backyard Boost uses only the highest quality components and proprietary ingredients proven to support a flourishing flock. Two products will be included in the initial launch:
    • Backyard Boost Daily Essentials is a pelleted, natural protein supplement fully fortified with a prebiotic, vitamins, minerals and organic trace minerals to maximize growth and egg production and support overall flock health.
    • Backyard Boost Defense is a liquid supplement that promotes feed and water intake during times of stress and recovery to help support digestive health and a healthy inflammatory response.
    • Please watch your email for more information and an upcoming webinar on the specifics of these two great new products.

CHANGES COMING IN MAY 2021

DISCONTINUED PRODUCTS

  • On May 1, 2021, VitaFerm® Concept•Aid® 10 will be discontinued due to declining sales.