Diversity Offers Increased Profitability

Diversity is the key to business survival. Sure, some companies have thrived on one product line, like Michelin or Crocs like Lisa referred to in her letter earlier in this issue. However, think about a company that only sold rain gauges in the West in 2022. That company likely didn’t fair too well.

In the animal nutrition business, there are many reasons to diversify. Most people own multiple species, and they genuinely care about their animals.

Here are three reasons BioZyme® has chosen to diversify its product lines, and why the company encourages its dealers to diversify too.

Reduce Risk

Many customers will make buying decisions based on economic and environmental conditions. These are the reasons BioZyme offers multiple products in our VitaFerm® line. Of course, Vita Ferm® Concept•Aid® is the most popular mineral, known for aiding with reproductive performance within the cow herd. However, VitaFerm® Cattlemen’s Blend™ is a great vitamin and mineral option for producers who want to supplement cows once they are bred and turned out on grass. VitaFerm Conserve® offers multiple options as a maintenance mineral for producers who want to cut costs but not their nutrition program.

The variety of products reduces the risk of the customer leaving the VitaFerm brand because they provide a variety of options during challenging economic times in a variety of environments.

Open the Door to Opportunities

A variety of products in your portfolio increases the opportunities to make a sale. Not only can you up sell and cross sell, but you also increase your customer base due to the variety of products that you offer. BioZyme capitalized on this opportunity during the pandemic when the backyard chicken craze exploded, and BioZyme simultaneously launched its Backyard Boost® line of products. Since it is important to take care of every animal, we wanted backyard chicken owners to have the same opportunity to include AO-Biotics® Amaferm® in their chickens’ daily diets.

In addition to an additional new line, let’s think about the programs BioZyme offers. For example, the Gain Smart® Stocker Program consists of three products that work synergistically to improve animal health and performance – Vita Charge® Cattle Drench, Vita Charge® Stress Tubs and the Gain Smart® Mineral. Additional product offerings are almost always complementary in nature and meet multiple consumer needs which provide great opportunities for business growth.

Fulfill Customers’ Needs

A single product focus cannot meet all customer needs. Let’s look at a family in rural America. The father might run a commercial cow herd. He definitely needs the VitaFerm line. The mom might have a flock of ewes and sell club lambs. She will most likely be interested in in DuraFerm® and Vita Charge. They might have children that show horses and also have a flock of backyard birds. They will need the Vitalize® and Backyard Boost products. Look at the opportunities that live at one address. The customers’ needs can all be met at one nutrition supplier because you offer a diverse range of products.

Diversification – it just makes sense for your customer and your bottom line. Diversify your product offering, and watch your business grow.

Customer Retention is a Wise Investment

As a youngster, you might have heard, “make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other’s gold.” Substitute the word friend with customer, and the same rings true. Retaining customers is a very important part of business and a wise investment if you want to watch your business continue to grow.

Returning customers give you the opportunity to provide ongoing value, develop more personalized relationships, create brand advocates, gain referrals and earn positive word-of-mouth marketing. In addition, research shows that 68% of new customers come from current ones, making it a smart move for your customers and your bottom line to keep current customers coming back.

We’re not insinuating that growing new customers isn’t important. However, it is important to invest in the current customer base that typically will spend 67% more than new customers. And it costs 16 times more to drum up new customers than it does to keep a repeat customer. Here are four ways you can invest wisely in those golden repeat customers.

Customer Outreach
Regardless of if you use a quick phone call, text or email, be sure to communicate with your customers on a regular basis. Your time can be the lowest cost
investment you make to retain a customer. Keep track of their orders, and if you notice it has been a while since they ordered a particular product, give them a call. Perhaps their daughter scored the winning basket at last Friday’s basketball game,
so start the conversation with a congratulations, and then move into asking if they were running low on VitaFerm® Concept•Aid® since you know they are preparing for calving season. Customer outreach is vital to retaining customers; it lets them know you care and that you really are keeping up on their program.

Customer Appreciation
Everyone enjoys being shown some appreciation and that includes your valued repeat customers. If you are hosting a customer appreciation event like an open house or an anniversary sale, be sure your local customers are aware of any promotions or sales. Provide them with a chance to come into your store, visit, shop and take advantage of any appreciation that you are showing. It will make a
difference in their return.

Customer Service
Retaining customers in not always about providing the best products at the best price. It might also be about providing the best services. Perhaps they can get the same products at a neighboring town, but you stay open later to serve those who have 8 to 5 jobs. Maybe the customer likes that you help load the product into their truck, whereas your competitor just expects the customer to load the product into
their own truck. Service, both large and small, adds up and means something to the customer.

Loyalty Programs
Now, it probably doesn’t make sense to have a “punch card” for a mineral program; however, if you have a customer who is buying large quantities of product from you, you might want to show some appreciation in some form. Perhaps with every
pallet, they get some swag, or some Vita Charge® Gel or a percentage off their next pallet. For every customer they refer that purchases a certain amount, they could receive a new cap and pair of gloves. Loyalty matters and rewarding loyalty will keep your customers returning and spending money with you.

Yes, investing time and money in your golden or current customers will pay in the long-term. One online article said that 80% of future profits come from 20% of current customers. Retain your current customers, and watch your business grow.

Know your Checkbook: Customer Retention is a Wise Investment

As a youngster, you might have heard, “make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other’s gold.” Substitute the word friend with customer, and the same rings true. Retaining customers is a very important part of business and a wise investment if you want to watch your business continue to grow.

Returning customers give you the opportunity to provide ongoing value, develop more personalized relationships, create brand advocates, gain referrals and earn positive word-of-mouth marketing. In addition, research shows that 68% of new customers come from current ones, making it a smart move for your customers and your bottom line to keep current customers coming back.

We’re not insinuating that growing new customers isn’t important. However, it is important to invest in the current customer base that typically will spend 67% more than new customers. And it costs 16 times more to drum up new customers than it does to keep a repeat customer. Here are four ways you can invest wisely in those golden repeat customers.

Customer Outreach
Regardless of if you use a quick phone call, text or email, be sure to communicate with your customers on a regular basis. Your time can be the lowest cost investment you make to retain a customer. Keep track of their orders, and if you notice it has been a while since they ordered a particular product, give them a call. Perhaps their daughter scored the winning basket at last Friday’s basketball game, so start the conversation with a congratulations, and then move into asking if they were running low on VitaFerm® Concept•Aid® since you know they are preparing for calving season. Customer outreach is vital to retaining customers; it lets them know you care and that you really are keeping up on their program.

Customer Appreciation
Everyone enjoys being shown some appreciation and that includes your valued repeat customers. If you are hosting a customer appreciation event like an open house or an anniversary sale, be sure your local customers are aware of any promotions or sales. Provide them with a chance to come into your store, visit, shop and take advantage of any appreciation that you are showing. It will make a difference in their return.

Customer Service
Retaining customers in not always about providing the best products at the best price. It might also be about providing the best services. Perhaps they can get the same products at a neighboring town, but you stay open later to serve those who have 8 to 5 jobs. Maybe the customer likes that you help load the product into their truck, whereas your competitor just expects the customer to load the product into
their own truck. Service, both large and small, adds up and means something to the customer.

Loyalty Programs
Now, it probably doesn’t make sense to have a “punch card” for a mineral program; however, if you have a customer who is buying large quantities of product from you, you might want to show some appreciation in some form. Perhaps with every pallet, they get some swag, or some Vita Charge® Gel or a percentage off their next pallet. For every customer they refer that purchases a certain amount, they could receive a new cap and pair of gloves. Loyalty matters and rewarding loyalty will keep your customers returning and spending money with you.

Yes, investing time and money in your golden or current customers will pay in the long-term. One online article said that 80% of future profits come from 20% of current customers. Retain your current customers, and watch your business grow.

Know your Checkbook: It is more Blessed to Give than to Receive

In our household, the second grader regularly reminds her dad and me that “sharing is caring.” This bold statement can be applied to something small like sharing her apples with me while she eats her popcorn on Sunday night or agreeing to fill a few extra shoeboxes for boys and girls during Operation Christmas Child during the holidays. In other words, she enjoys sharing and knows the importance of it.

As we approach the holiday season, it seems like there are numerous opportunities to give. You can give your time, you can give gifts, you can give blood. You can give as an individual, a family or a business. Giving can be a spontaneous gesture like dropping a donation in the red kettle or it can be planned. Any way you give this season, and throughout the year, remember that it is indeed “more blessed to give than receive.”

Not only will you be blessed as you give, giving is healthy. Studies have shown there are several health benefits to giving. They include lower blood pressure, less anxiety and depression and increased self-esteem. Anytime you can do something good for others and improve your own health, that seems like a win-win.

Giving also makes us happy. Research shows that giving both money and time provides humans an emotional surge because feeling good is a product of doing good. It’s built into our neurochemistry. Giving triggers feel-good chemicals like endorphins, dopamine and oxytocin. And it’s true across cultural and economic lines, too, according to a Harvard Business School study.

Who doesn’t want to reduce their stress levels? It turns out that giving also lowers your stress. When we are overall happier, we are less stressed. Studies also show that volunteering and giving to others can help us with improved self-esteem and can reduce cases of depression.

Giving is contagious. Have you heard of paying it forward? It is a real phenomenon. It feels pretty amazing to be in the fast food or coffee line, and when you get to the window to pay, the clerk announces that the car in front of you has paid for your order. Because of your happiness, and the fact that giving is contagious, you will likely pay for the person behind you. It is a true chain reaction.

Giving builds relationships. If you give your money, time or material gifts, you must have a connection to an individual or an organization that you believe in. That contact is someone you can build a relationship with. You never know where that relationship can lead. It could lead to further relationships, a future employee or customer.

As you can see, the benefits of giving are many. Not only are you helping others, but you are also reaping the rewards, too, in terms of better health, less stress and more happiness. It truly is better to give than receive. There are numerous opportunities to give around the holidays. Give where you can.

Know your Checkbook: Quality Customer Service can Increase your Bottom Line

Providing excellent customer service doesn’t cost your business anything. However, if even one customer has even a somewhat bad experience, it could cost you everything. Customer service is crucial to business and ultimately sales. Think about how fast news spreads, especially in a small community, and even more so with the aid of social media. People share positive experiences, and they are like endorsements. But one bad experience can make its way through the rumor mill in record speed, ruining your reputation and your sales.

A recent survey of American Express showed that 70% of customers are willing to spend 13% more on average with companies they believe provide exceptional customer service. Making a conscious effort to impress your customers creates the kind of reputation that promotes word-of-mouth referrals and upsell opportunities – ultimately increasing sales.

Another study showed that a 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as decreasing costs by 10%. In an environment where businesses are increasingly concerned with their bottom line, companies may focus a lot more on improving customer satisfaction.

The best part of increasing your customer satisfaction levels is that customers keep coming back. These retained customers cost less than new customers. Why? Because you aren’t spending marketing dollars trying to get them in your stores – services you’re already providing are convincing them to come back.

Just what is that returning customer worth? According to an online article on Lireo.com:

  • Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase your profits up to 125%
  • Loyal customers are worth 10 times as much as their first purchase on average
  • Companies that make customer service a priority make 60% higher profits than their competitors

How to Improve Your Customers’ Experiences and Retain Them

  • Ask your customers for feedback – When you show that you care and that you’re willing to listen to your customers, they will appreciate it and want to give you their business. Really listen and try to implement their suggestions and feedback, and then show what changes you have made based on their suggestions.
  • Offer a good mix of products – Make sure you have the products that your customers use the most on-hand including seasonal items relevant to the animals’ nutritional development.
  • Keep your store easy to navigate – Keep your aisles clear, and set up a good flow. Keep like or complimentary products together so your customers don’t have to go from corner to corner to get the two products they came for.
  • Train your employees on how to handle complaints respectfully – Negative interactions spread to twice as many people as positive interactions. If an employee handles a complaint well, the chance of the dissatisfied customer spreading his or her discontentment decreases.

Customer service is something we strive to perfect each day but now that you know it can help your profits, be sure to give a little extra attention to the customers. Your customers will surely notice, and you can watch your business grow.

Community Support Comes in all Sizes

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

This quote by Helen Keller epitomizes the spirit of community, especially at this “most wonderful time of the year.” It is often hard to think about those less fortunate in our communities and how we’d like to help them, especially with the agricultural economy in its up and down cycle. We are busy paying our own bills and trying to provide a nice holiday for our families. However, if we come together with our coworkers, friends, a church group, or another organization we can make a difference without breaking the bank.

One thing that BioZyme® did during November is gather food for community food banks. That’s right; employees across many locations including St. Joseph, Mo., Haskell, Texas, and Area Sales Managers and other remote workers gathered nonperishable food items for local food banks. Between the St. Joseph and the off-site workers, employees had the potential to donate to 30 banks in 16 different states from Pennsylvania to Texas to Montana to Missouri.

One employee visited a local grocery store where she purchased two cases of canned vegetables, four cans of chicken, a large tub of peanut butter (think non-perishable protein), a box of crackers, a jar of meaty spaghetti sauce and a box of pasta for less than $25. If each person gives similarly, that can feed several people for several meals. And in that employee’s mind, that is two trips through a fast-food drive through for her family or roughly four “foo-foo” coffees for when she gets to the big city – not a major sacrifice for others that are truly in need.

Perhaps your town has a local soup kitchen. Those places are always looking for volunteers to make and serve a meal. Would it really hurt business to shut down to a skeleton crew for a few hours one day to go and serve the community? Perhaps leave a few employees at the store to serve your customers but take the rest to the local soup kitchen or homeless shelter to help prepare and/or serve a meal. The gratitude levels do vary, but your personal satisfaction in knowing you made a difference will soar.

Several organizations typically have an opportunity to “adopt a family” by providing gifts and holiday meals for families that might not otherwise have a nice holiday. Adopting a family as a company might seem daunting or not in the budget, but if your company and its employees work together to adopt a family it can be a little easier on everyone’s checkbooks and make a lasting impact on a family. I remember when I worked at another company, we adopted a family with four or five kids one year, and they all needed winter coats and wanted bicycles. Well, we worked with the local Wal-Mart and K-Marts in town to get bikes at reduced rates when we told them what we were doing. Several of my male co-workers who didn’t really want to “shop” all pitched in a set amount – probably around $20 – and we made sure that family had bikes and warm coats. I signed up to help with the delivery that year. And even though we contacted the mom to see if she wanted to have the bikes be from “Santa” she refused. She wanted her kids to know that kind people gifted her kids those bikes. I’ve never seen 7 and 8-year-olds cry tears of joy for coats and bikes, and it was truly one of the best Christmases I’ve ever experienced.

Giving back. It is more fun to do as a group and the impact is often greater. It doesn’t have to put a big hit on one person or company’s checkbook if we all work together to make a few sacrifices to give to those less fortunate. And together, we can do so much more.

Make an Impact on Others

As the calendar year-end draws closer, many individuals and businesses look for charitable causes to give to. With the holidays near, it is in our hearts and on our minds to give to those who might not have the same advantages we have. But have you thought how you can best make an impact on others?

First, you need to select just a few worthy causes to donate to. Your dollars will make the biggest impact if you don’t spread your gifts too thin over too many charitable organizations. Determine how much you want to spend, and then decide if you want to give all of that to one group or split it two or three ways.

Next, determine how your funds will be used. Does your donation really go toward helping others or will it go to administrative and further fundraising fees? Ask the organization outright. You might be surprised to learn that only 25-percent of your donation goes to the cause. If that is the case, determine if that is a cause worth supporting or is there another charity or individual you can give to? If you are unsure, visit www.give.org and search for your organization, to learn more about the cause and their spending.

Then, choose a cause or organization that is near and dear to your heart. Does someone in your family suffer from a disease that you are passionate about? There is most certainly a group that is raising money for research for a cure to that ailment. Do you care about helping kids whose only meals are what they get at school? Perhaps you’ll want to learn more or donate to Snack Pak 4 Kids™. Maybe you were once involved in 4-H or FFA, Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts, or another local youth organization in your town. It’s always nice to give back to an organization that made a personal impact on your life.

Perhaps you are new to your area, and don’t know where to donate, but want to keep your gift local. Talk to local clergy, someone at the bank or even local law enforcement officers. They are likely to know of local programs like “adopt a family” programs, “shop with a cop”, shelters or food pantries that always appreciate extra financial help around the holidays.

It doesn’t take a big check to make a big impact. If each person donates what he or she is comfortable with, those donations do add up. Pick the organization or groups you would like to help this holiday season and share your joy with others. Make sure the cause you are supporting uses your funds for its programs, and give with a glad heart.

How Employee Personality Profiles Can Save You Turnover Loss

If you’ve ever read the book, “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, you will understand getting the “right people in the right seats on the bus.” Companies don’t fail because they have bad employees, employees that aren’t trained properly or employees that don’t have the right personality. Companies fail because they don’t have the right people “in the right seats.” In other words, they have great employees, but perhaps they don’t have them in positions where they were meant to succeed.

Employee turnover is costly. There is no real way to measure it; you have the time and effort it takes to promote the vacant position, another employee has to fill in, resulting in decreased productivity; if the employee that left was one that others liked and respected, other employee morale could be down, also resulting in lowered performance or even causing others to leave their jobs. By the time you replace one employee that already understood your company culture and policies, recruit, hire and train a replacement employee, you are looking at spending thousands of dollars, and potentially having lost revenue due to losses in employee performance.

In his book, Collins talks about getting people in the positions that they are best suited for. Sometimes a company will hire someone on the premise that that person thinks they know their skill strengths, but they might not always realize their personality strengths and weaknesses. Although personality assessment does take time and money, the investment is typically one that pays off in the end and is less costly than employees leaving and having to recruit, hire and train.

At BioZyme, the employees took the Prism assessment. The results revealed insights into the employees “Emotional, Relational and Team Intelligence (ERT-i). This highly relevant and transformative data will provide you with critical information to impact your personal and professional performance, productivity and success.” In other words, the report likely told each individual things he or she already knew. However, it is an opportunity to let others within the company know more about how to work with each other and for supervisors to make sure they have the right people in the right seats on the bus.

Prism is just one of many assessments that companies can utilize. There are many options available at a variety of price points. Some come with further training while others provide a report and guidance on how to use that report.

So just how important is personality? As Virgin Mobile CEO Richard Branson put it, “Most skills can be learned, but it is difficult to train people on their personality.”

Let’s look at this example. For one Ohio-based company, taking a personality assessment helped its Human Resources and Management teams get people in the right positions. They discovered the person they had working the phones in a marketing customer support role was an extreme introvert. And while his degree was in marketing, he had a passion for graphic design. The company moved him into a design position where he could better use his talents and had no interaction with customers. He became very successful in his job. The same company discovered they had an employee who was very outgoing who hadn’t had the opportunity to talk to customers. They moved her into that customer support role, working on the phones. Not only did her career flourish, but customer satisfaction improved too.

Employee satisfaction and attrition go hand-in-hand. You can save the time and expense of employee turnover by making sure you have the right people in the right positions.

Selling a Program Increases Profit

It’s a great feeling when you find a customer that is loyal to a BioZyme® product. But it can be an even greater feeling for you, your customer and both of your bottom lines, when you can convince that customer to buy into an entire program from BioZyme.

Many customers are satisfied with the results of VitaFerm® Concept•Aid®, which is mineral designed to help increase reproductive performance when fed 60 days pre-calving through 60 days post-breeding. Like all BioZyme products, it contains Amaferm®, a precision prebiotic designed to enhance digestibility by amplifying the nutrient supply within for maximum performance. Amaferm is also research-proven to increase the energy available to the animal resulting in more milk production as well as to the ability to initiate and maintain pregnancy and fertility. But what about the time of year when producers don’t normally feed mineral – most likely those summer months? Then, you can encourage your customers feeding Concept•Aid to feed VitaFerm HEAT®, which will help reduce heat stress in the herd, which also helps maintain pregnancy.

If you have 10 customers with 40 cows each, and you sell them Concept•Aid 5/S for two-thirds of the year, you have the potential to make roughly $14,860 dollars. But where is your profit during the hot summer months? Selling those same 10 customer with 40 head VitaFerm HEAT for 120 days could land you an additional $7,420 of profit. That’s a total of $22,280 profit on 10

customers for the year. And let’s face it, most dealers have more than 10 customers. And that HEAT mineral is going to help the cows maintain pregnancy, which produces more live calves for them to market the following year, making it worth their investment in the program.

Just like there is added value to both you and the producer for investing in a year-round nutrition program for your cows, you and the producer will also find added value when investing in the three-step VitaFerm® Sure Start® weaning program or VitaFerm® Gain Smart® Stocker Program. Yes, it might be easy for a producer to buy Gain Smart or a Vita Charge® Stress Tub to put their calves on when weaned or turned out to grass. But did you know that if a producer uses one of our three-step programs, he or she can further reduce illness and get those calves back on feed and water sooner? This means they are putting on pounds of gain more efficiently and growing faster for the producer. Marketing the program will help your checkbook, but it will also help the producer in saving money on vet bills and helping calves realize gains faster.

The Sure Start weaning program includes a single dose of Vita Charge Drench or Gel upon weaning. The second step includes feeding Sure Start pellets to the calves for 14 to 28 days to help encourage them to come to the bunk and eat. After those first 2-3 weeks, you can begin to increase digestibility and maximize the energy value of your cattle’s feed with either the cow-calf mineral or the Gain Smart mineral.

The Gain Smart Stocker Program has a very similar approach to keeping calves healthy and on feed during this stressful transition period in their lives. Step one includes include giving the calves Vita Charge Drench within 48 hours of receiving to help stimulate the cattle’s immune system while allowing for maximum effectiveness of vaccinations. Step two provides the Vita Charge Stress Tub for 14 to 21 days to promote feed and water intake. The tubs also provide MOS that helps trap bad bacteria limiting their ability to do harm. And the Stress Tubs increase digestibility to maximize the energy value of feed for more gains. The final step in the program is selecting the right Gain Smart mineral for your operation and feeding program to accurately supplement those minerals lacking in the pasture and rectify mineral imbalances. Gain Smart will help maintain calf health and immunity, hoof health and support gain, once again helping the producer meet his or her goals quicker with fewer expenses.

The more times you can sell a program, the more you will help your customers meet their goals, but you will also help yourself meet your financial goals. Remember, it’s nice to sell a product, but it’s even nicer to put more profit into your dealership by selling a program.

Investing in Staff Development Pays Off

“The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay.” This profound statement made by Henry Ford is just as true with marketing livestock nutrition products as it was in automobile manufacturing. Investing time and money into your employee’s training is vital to keeping good employees.

To you, training might seem like a no-brainer. You hire some people, train them to stock shelves, be nice to customers and run the cash register. However, there are more steps and layers to employee training that a business owner or manager need to consider. Let’s look at four key reasons to invest in staff development.

1. Reduce Turnover 

According to research, nearly 40-percent of all employees leave their job the first year because they are unhappy or dissatisfied with the training they received. That is some big turnover, and every time a company has employee turnover, dollars and time are lost in the recruiting and hiring process. The same study showed that employee turnover costs U.S. businesses about $11 billion each year.

Not only will your employees be more likely to stay with your company if you offer some type of training or development, many potential employees look at training as an added benefit. Benefits are a big deal, especially to millennials, and if you provide the opportunities to grow, those benefits will help recruit and retain employees.

2. Build Loyalty 

Employees who feel like part of the team or business are going to remain loyal to the company. They know you have invested in them, so that loyalty increases. If you equip the staff with proper product knowledge, they become “experts” and can easily discuss the benefits and differences of particular products. Cross-training employees is essential, especially in smaller businesses where just a few people do every job. Make sure your employees are just as comfortable with finalizing a sale and helping load a truck as they are discussing the differences between VitaFerm® Concept•Aid® and VitaFerm HEAT®. Plus, loyal employees are more engaged and motivated and require less supervision.

3. Promote from Within 

Did you know that it is safer and more cost efficient to promote someone to a managerial position than it is to hire from the outside? The loyal employees that you have already invested in training, and who have invested their time and knowledge into your company typically make better managers because they already understand the business and the products and services offered. There is less training needed when promoting from within, and studies show that promoting from within often saves a company about $20,000 in salary, bonuses, benefits and training costs.

4. Ensure Longevity

A lot of credit should be given to a company that has happy employees that stay with it. The longer a good, well-trained employee stays with a business, the more loyal he or she becomes to the company, and the relationships between that employee and the customers has time to grow and flourish. Employee longevity is another sign of trust between the employer and the employee, and long-time employees often give the employers more freedom. In addition, thinking back to retention, a long-term employee also saves on expenses, as it is shown to cost from $1,500 to $5,000 to recruit and hire a new employee.

Now that you know the value of employee development, what tools are available to train your employees? One resource that BioZyme® offers is the Master Dealer Program. This online training program allows dealers to learn about sales and marketing as well as the various product lines that BioZyme offers through a series of online training modules. The dealers work at their own pace to watch the videos and take short quizzes. Once a participant has completed the training, and met all the requirements, they will receive a jacket, signage for the store and a special emblem on the Dealer Locator, indicating they are indeed a Master Dealer.

Master Dealer 2.0 is just being rolled out this summer. New training videos on different topics will be available to those who have completed the first Master Dealer Training Program. A year after your Master Dealer completion, you will receive notification about the second phase, and be able to complete that to stay more current on new products and marketing trends.

And, if you are looking for other ways to train your employees, get involved with local organizations. Chances are the local cattlemen association will offer BQA training or the Chamber of Commerce might have workshops geared toward marketing and customer service. Training your employees, and yourself, pays off. Make the time and make the investment.