Dealer Spotlight: Darlington Feed, LLC

Show us a dealer with ambition, a wide network of diverse producers and a willingness to use the tools provided, and we’ll show you Darlington Feed, LLC. Matt Weigel at Darlington, Wisconsin, has been a BioZyme dealer for nine years, and says the best thing about the BioZyme products is that they always do what they say they will.

“I’m not selling them anything. I feel like I am helping my customers,” he said. “Whenever I am talking to anyone – in the store or somewhere else, I ask them ‘how are things at the ranch?’. They will always tell you what is wrong, then you know what to offer them to help them. It’s a simple conversation starter to help them.”

Weigel and his staff are helping a diverse group of producers. He said his team does a great job and is always confident selling the BioZyme products, knowing the products will do what they are needed to do.

One of his most popular products is VitaFerm® Concept•Aid® 5/S; however, the Vita Charge® Clench Gel is also increasing in demand with the dairies in his area. Dairy producers like to keep 2-3 cases of Clench Gel on hand when calving.

Another event that has grown for Darlington Feed is Chick Days, and Weigel has seen the benefits of putting Backyard Boost® in his chicks’ water.

Not only does he recognize the diversity and quality of products that he gets from BioZyme, but he also appreciates the presence that the marketing and sales staff offers from the tools they provide from signage and training.

“Everything is there for you to use. You just have to use it,” he said.

In 2022, Weigel was able to build his own store, giving customers a brighter, neater shopping experience. He said the investment shows his customers there is security in his business, and he intends to be able to provide them service for the long haul.

In addition to building his own store front, he has partnered with Eastland Feed, who has the ability to manufacture feed for him and adds Amaferm® to rations when customers request it.

BioZyme is proud to have ambitious, young dealers who use the tools that are offered to them to provide care that comes full circle. Thanks, Darlington Feed, for being a BioZyme dealer!

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.

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.

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.

Use the Marketing Tools that BioZyme Offers to Help You Sell

Regardless of your dealership size or status, BioZyme® offers a variety of tools to help you share about the products, promote the products and help educate your customers about your business and the goods that you offer.

Ty McGuire, Area Sales Manager in Michigan, Western Ohio and Kentucky, encourages all dealers to learn about and use the tools that are offered to them. He said that starts with product knowledge so you can talk about products and costs at the drop of hat when the subject comes up in conversation.

“Knowledge is power. Wherever you are, you should know the products and be able to talk about them,” he said.

One of the best ways to familiarize yourself with the products is through the Master Dealer Training Program. This online training tool gives a brief overview of all the products. As an incentive to complete it, dealers are offered a special designation on the Online Dealer Locator, in store signage and a Master Dealer Jacket.

For new products, Facebook trainings have taken place on the BioZyme Dealer Facebook Page, another resource that offers timely information, tools and company news.

Another great tool that McGuire recommends his dealers use regularly is the Online Dealer Center. The Online Dealer Center allows dealers to gather product information and trainings as well as monitor their own sales activities.

Promoboxx and social media are two more marketing tools that McGuire said have been game-changers during the past few years. As people have technology and information at their fingertips, it is important to have a presence on social media. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are becoming increasingly popular for businesses to publicize featured products and in-store promotions.

The BioZyme Marketing Team creates regular posts through Promoboxx that align with current advertising campaigns. Dealers can sign up for Promoboxx and use these posts or elements of them across all brands to help create awareness on their business Facebook pages.

Perhaps one of the most important tools a dealer can create is a customer mailing list. Mailing lists “fill the pipeline with contacts,” according to McGuire, and those contacts are essential when it comes time for BioZyme to send quarterly mailers.

For someone who hasn’t started a mailing list yet, McGuire suggests starting with a simple Excel spreadsheet and start adding names, mailing addresses, city, state and zip codes. You might also want to add a space for phone number or email and even the types of animals or products they use for future reference. If you are not sure how to get all these addresses, start with getting information from the check or envelopes that the remittance comes in from bill payments.

Marketing tools exist and so do people who are willing to help. Don’t forget to reach out to your ASM or the Outreach Support Center. The tools and people that BioZyme offers are available to help you succeed.

BioZyme Helps Dealers Achieve Success with Marketing Campaigns

Success doesn’t happen overnight. Success is a collaborative effort that takes time, effort, some failures along the way and an army of people working toward a common goal. Our goal is to help you position and market the products that we make so we all succeed.

When it comes to the Vitalize® equine line, we’ve spent time diversifying our efforts, both in the audiences we reach and the methods that we use to reach them. Vitalize is such a unique product because it can be used by such a variety of end-users: hobby riders, professional athletes in the English discipline and in rodeo and by those who use their horses for work like ranchers. We’ve partnered with relevant ambassadors across all disciplines to help promote the benefits of Vitalize and the #goodgutfeeling, regardless of if it is jumping, trying to be a tenth of a second faster around a barrel pattern or even keeping your horses fresh and healthy when on the open range.

During the recent National Finals Rodeo, the BioZyme team branched out to do more than ever before to get the Vitalize name in front of the rodeo audience. For the second year, two Vitalize ambassadors competed in the finals – barrel racer, Emily Miller-Beisel and 2019 world-champion tie-down roper Haven Meged. Much of the Vitalize social media content was focused on these two rodeo athletes.

In addition, a Vitalize television commercial aired every other night during the performance on the two channels that televised the NFR. On the Cowboy Channel and RFD websites and mobile apps during December, Vitalize had three banner ads, a feature story with a special pop up as one of the rotations highlighting our story on the website and mobile app, and a 10-second commercial spot on the Cowboy Channel official NFR Experience page and app.

We ran a sponsored carousel ad on Team Roping Journal social pages during the second week of the NFR. BioZyme participated in the NFR Blitz with National Roper Supply and did some doorbuster giveaways during the two weeks of the NFR, and also conducted numerous in-store displays and promos with dealers.

What does this mean to you?

With every advertisement commercial and story, there is a place for the viewer to click on the website and ultimately “find a dealer.” That is our goal. According to Hayley Keck, Marketing Brand Coordinator, in the month of December 2020, www.vitalizeeq.com had the most visitors in its history. 12,861 unique users in 14,396 total sessions visited the website, when the site typically get 4,000 to 6,000 visitors per month!

In addition to web traffic, social media sites were also busier than normal during December. Between the NFR promotions like “Greatness is in your Horse” and the ambassador stocking stuffer giveaways, social media proved to be another fantastic way to spread the Vitalize message in a timely manner. It also helps when you can show videos of Miller-Beisel and Meged winning rounds at the NFR wearing brand patches.

Once the potential customers find a dealer – you – we know that our marketing has been successful. Will all 12,000 plus reach out to a dealer? No. But some will. Will they reach out at once? No. But they will remember that they visited a website about a good gut feeling next time their horse is colicky or isn’t feeling its best. Will Emily’s and Haven’s rodeo friends ask them about how they keep their horses healthy hauling them all over the country? Yes, they will, and both the cowboy and cowgirl are believers in Vitalize Alimend and Vitalize Recovery Gel.

Success. It comes one day at a time. One collaboration at a time and one marketing strategy at a time.

How to Reach New Markets During Chick Days

Chick Days will be here before we know it. For many farm and home and feed stores, chick days turns into chick weeks or even months, as the stores order chicks in advance and carry inventory from March through May, or even longer. Some might have chicks in-stock while initial supplies last, and others, like Weiss Milling (see Dealer Spotlight), might custom order chicks. You can make chick days a way to reach new markets that you might not think of during other times of the year.

Be a one-stop Shop

You’ve got the chicks. Make sure you’re stocked with all the necessary items that a first-time or even a repeat chick-buyer is going to need. Do you have the bedding? Feeders and waterers? Feed and health supplements? Coops and fencing? By making it convenient for the buyer, that shows you’re there to provide service, which could lead to a repeat customer for other products, even those not chick-related, in the future.

Provide Education

Consumers are hungry for education. They want to know the best way to care for their chicks to the best of their ability, and they want information in an easy-to-read format. They want to know about feed, water, housing, egg laying and general flock health. Since chicks don’t come with a label that contains all this information it is your job to provide the label information. Create a handy FAQ Sheet that is easy to follow, has all the information you would want to know about raising backyard birds and your business contact information. You might even provide a website with further flock information like www. backyardboost.co.

Educate your Employees

Part of providing customer education starts with educated employees. Before coming to work at BioZyme, I worked as a part-time farm store vendor and set up chick drinkers and feeders in chick days displays in the Chicago suburbs. I remember two college-aged girls oohing and aahhing over some baby chicks, who asked one of the farm store employees if she thought the chicks would be ok in the apartment as they got older. The employee replied “definitely.” I don’t know that I’d want five or six grown chickens in my apartment or if they would actually thrive without fresh air and sunlight, let alone what the landlord would think! Be sure you and your employees know the city ordinances for surrounding towns – do they allow chickens in backyards or not? Know how much space an adult bird needs, know about waste management protocols and provide good, sound advice.

Use Social Media

Social media is a great way to create excitement about your chick days event, especially if you have dedicated an opening weekend or first few days to launch your event. Use your various social media platforms to get the word out that you have chicks or announce their arrival dates. Photos and videos of baby animals are great attention grabbers and will catch the eyes of those scrolling through their news feed. Use a Facebook Live for in-store promotions or even for educational snippets during and after chick days to keep in front of your customers. Keep the excitement of backyard birds going long after chick days through social media with user engagement: have your customers post photos of their grown chickens, share their success stories or other funny stories of raising chickens.

Chick days are almost here. With people still staying home and looking for hobbies and ways to feed their families, you can use chick days to gain traction in your business, provide another service to your community and market your business to an audience that you might not traditionally reach. Once you reach this chick day audience, remember to ask if they have other animals that you might be able to help them with like dogs, cats or horses. Animals lovers regardless of species will appreciate doing business with a company that shows care that comes full circle and can supply them products for all their animals’ needs.

Upselling, Cross-selling Adds Value to your Business and Customer

Upselling and cross-selling are two terms you likely have heard before. They are often confused or used interchangeably; however, they are two distinct ways of marketing products that not only will help your business see more growth but will help your customers achieve more long-term success.

Upselling is the practice of encouraging customers to purchase a comparable higher-end product than the one they might be originally considering. Cross-selling urges customers to buy related or complementary items. These two practices are most effective when they are used synergistically, and the end result for you, the dealer, is increased sales and hopefully a customer who sees better results.

Cross-selling is a practice that should be used in business nearly every time you make a sale. Products in the new Backyard Boost® line like Backyard Boost Daily Essentials and Backyard Boost Defense were created for cross-selling opportunities. Most people won’t immediately think of nutritional supplements for their backyard birds. However, they will think of other essentials like coops, heat lamps, bedding and feed. When they go pick out their feed or have questions about bird health, these are some ideal times for some cross-selling statements:

  • Have you thought about how you’re going to keep your chicks healthy?
  • Would you like to add a supplement to your chick feed to keep them feeling healthy and keep them happy?
  • Did you know that a product like Daily Essentials will help your chickens get the most nutrient supply from their feed?
  • How are you going to treat your chicks when they stress out and get sick? Have you thought about Defense?

Cross-selling allows you to add on an essential product that will benefit the customer in his or her endeavor. Often times when you cross-sell, the customer hasn’t thought about that additional need yet, but when you mention it, it becomes an “ah-ha” moment for them, and a cross-sell suggestion often saves the customer a trip back to the store in the future, while helping you create a sale.

Upselling is a tool that should be used anytime you have a product that contains Amaferm®. With a precision prebiotic like Amaferm, products like Backyard Boost Daily Essentials and Defenses are already more beneficial than other supplements that exist on the market. The Amaferm advantage and other natural ingredients in these supplements will:

  • Support performance and health of the birds by supporting the digestion and absorption of nutrients.
  • Reduce digestive upset, therefore improving the overall health and wellbeing of the birds.
  • Increase egg production, while improving eggshell and yolk quality.
  • Support growth and feather quality.
  • Boost immune response and combat negative effects of stress.

Upselling allows you to share experiences of a high-quality product with your customer and those benefits that a premium product will provide. Remember, a premium product doesn’t always have to be the one with the highest price tag; it is the one that is backed by research and has the most high-quality ingredients included in it.

Both upselling and cross-selling are marketing tools that will allow you to help your customer and yourself. They help your customers succeed in their feeding and production endeavors and they help you meet your sales goals. When you combine the two and work them together, your business will experience even more growth.

Take the time to practice upselling and cross-selling across all species and products. There is always a product that will add value to another product. Try these marketing techniques and watch your business grow!

Identify Your Customers’ Pain Points and Help Eliminate Them

Physical pain is never good. However, for people in business, trying to make a living there is another pain that needs to be addressed. Did you know that in the world of marketing, your customers experience their own pain points? Although these pain points may not cause physical pain, they can still be challenging to “diagnose.” As a business owner or leader, you can distinguish your business by discovering pain points your customers have and providing a solution.

What is a pain point?

Pain points are specific problems that your prospective customer faces or simply put, challenges. Challenges come in a variety of forms and can be as different as your potential customer list. Some challenges can be prevented or eliminated due to proper management. Other challenges, like the environment cannot always be predicted, but can still be helped. Although a multitude of pain points exist, WordStream.com groups pain points into four broad categories and describes them as follows:

• Financial Pain Points: Your prospects are spending too much money on their current provider/solution/products and want to reduce their spending, or see a better ROI.

• Productivity Pain Points: Your prospects are wasting too much time using their current provider/solution/products or want to use their time more efficiently. With our audience this could be that they want to shorten their calving window or simply find a way to increase efficiencies.

• Process Pain Points: Your prospects want to improve internal processes. For our customer base, this could mean they want to treat fewer calves or they are looking for a more stress-free way to wean their calves and get them started on feed and water.

• Support Pain Points: Your prospects aren’t receiving the support they need at critical stages of the customer journey or sales process.

Once you start thinking about pain points in these four categories, you should be able to start to plan your positioning in a way that will address each of these pain points to show that your company is the best solution to their challenges.

How to Identify the Pain Points and Find a Solution

Now that you understand the four broad categories of pain points, how do you tell which pain point your potential customer is facing? Chances are, there are at least a couple of pains points that have your potential client reeling. So be ready to address their needs to set your business apart from the competition.

The best way to identify pain points is to have a one-on-one conversation with your prospects. Ask them directly what their challenges are and how you can help solve those challenges. Really listen to what they have to say before offering a solution. Although many prospects and customers will have similar pain points, everyone will have some variation on how they plan to manage to fix or solve those challenges.

Perhaps your customer is troubled with spending a large sum of money on a consumable product like mineral. This is a great time to have a conversation about the investment that customer or prospect will be making in the nutrition and overall health of an animal. Talk about the ROI for that customer, if he or she spends money on a product like VitaFerm® Concept•Aid®, and how that investment can produce more live calves, and therefore generate more income.

If the pain point involves support, you can offer numerous solutions based on the goods and services you offer while providing outstanding customer service. The personal services that back a product are sometimes just as important to the customer as the product itself.

We don’t want to see anyone in pain – physical or otherwise. By discovering your potential customers’ pain points early in your conversation, you can set your company apart by offering solutions to their challenges and helping to ease their “pain.” This should ultimately differentiate your business, and you can watch your business grow.

Partnerships and Programs Increase Profit Potential

There are only 24 hours to each day, and seven days in the week. You have a to-do list a mile long, including the desire to increase your BioZyme® sales for the year. Alan Lee, Director of National Sales – South, offers tips to help you grow your business and your profit potential.

Step 1 – Decide to multiply your business this year.

You are the only person who can make this life-changing decision. Don’t be wishy-washy. Make the decision, define how much you want to grow your business and start working.

Step 2 – Once you make the decision, do whatever it takes to get it done.

Develop a plan, write it down and make no excuses as you move forward. A plan or written goal will help you with accountability. And if you need to take that accountability further, talk to your spouse, business partner or even your ASM and let him or her know what your business growth goals are for the future.

Step 3 – Find mutually beneficial business partners to back up the plan.

Work together to build one another’s brand awareness and/or customer base. Until you ask to form a partnership, the answer is always no. Is there an animal health company, semen company or auction company you can partner with to conduct producer meetings? You probably share some customers, but you also share potential customers. Do simple things for one another like share your company links on each other’s websites. Start small, and develop endless opportunities with strong partnerships.

Step 4 – Connect the dots. Do you have a customer who has customers that you need to reach out to? For example, you have a VitaFerm® customer who sells 200 bulls every year. If that producer sells 200 bulls, who is he or she selling to? Have you asked that producer who those customers are? Do those customers use BioZyme products? If not, there are many potential customers who already have a trusting relationship with someone with a success story (the producer who sells 200 bulls) with our products. Connect the dots.

Step 5 – Think of established revenue sources as a partner. Although new customers are important, make sure your core customers are taking advantage of all products and programs. Sure, a cow-calf producer is using a Vita Charge® Stress Tub at weaning, but what about the rest of the year? And what about the other species on that operation? Make sure that customer knows about VitaFerm Concept•Aid®, VitaFerm HEAT, and Gain Smart. Does that operation also have horses and kids with livestock projects? Make sure you tell them about the Vitalize® and Sure Champ® product lines as well. And most of all, try to sell them a program, not just a product.

Make sure your current customers understand the value of using an entire program, not just a single product in their operation. Sell sheets for four key programs are available in the Online Dealer Center that will show the cost per animal vs. the ROI for the producer and the profit potential for the dealer when selling the program. For example, a producer with 40 cows, feeding Concept•Aid most of the year, and HEAT during the hot summer months will spend approximately $56 per cow. However, because of the increase in conception rates, adding more pounds of calves to wean, the producer should see an additional $20.63 profit. Studies show that calves will gain an extra .25 pound per day with the Amaferm® advantage, so higher performing, heavier calves will also result in additional profit to the producer for feeding these two supplements of $76.88 per cow. Now, if you have 10 producers with 40 cows each, your sales for those two products could bring in $22,280. See why it is important to sell the program and not just a product?

Be sure to check out the Retreat Page in the Online Dealer Center by going to www.biozymedealer.com and clicking “Retreat”. Here you will find updated sell sheets for all programs and products as well as Alan’s presentation that includes the profit-potential breakdowns of these four programs: VitaFerm Cow-Calf Program, Gain Smart Stocker Program, Super Start Dairy Calf Program, and the Recovery Programs. The sell sheets will explain more in-depth the benefit of the products and how to best position them when selling.

An Investment in Nutrition Prevents Common Animal Disease

In a region of the United States where Anaplasmosis is a cause for concern in the cow herd, Bob Black doesn’t worry about his herd catching the infective blood disease that can decrease performance, cause weight loss, abortion and ultimately death loss. The fifth-generation cattle producer focuses on managing his herd’s immune system function and investing in a sound nutrition program. And in addition to ranching with his brother, he owns Elk County Veterinary Services at Howard, Kan., and has been a BioZyme® dealer for nearly 18 years.

The Blacks run a cow-calf operation in southeast Kansas where they concentrate on raising cattle with a high carcass quality to provide the consumer a safe and favorable eating experience. The brothers wean nearly 300 calves each year, and Dr. Black says he can’t remember treating any animals for Anaplasmosis since they have been feeding VitaFerm® products.

“We’ve been feeding VitaFerm for at least 25 years, and whatever we invest in pays off in the end,” says Dr. Black. “Amaferm does a great job of breaking down the forages, and the organic minerals keep the cattle’s immunity up.”

The cow herd on the Black’s operation eats a forage-based diet with minimal supplementation. However, the VitaFerm products they do feed offer maximum nutrition in key trace minerals of copper, zinc, selenium and magnesium.
In addition, Amaferm is a great resource to help break down the forages and convert them to energy.

Dr. Black has used LONGRANGE® to control parasites such as ticks that spread Anaplasmosis for the past three years. In addition, he manages their body condition score to keep cows between 5-6 BCS, with a goal of 90% conception rate. He says if the cows get too much condition, they lie around and don’t graze, and therefore are not as healthy.

“It all comes down to proper management and animal husbandry” Dr. Black said.

Although he has chosen to ward off Anaplasmosis by proactive management techniques, he does sell CTC to some customers. Dr. Black’s goal is to use his personal successes to demonstrate the Amaferm advantage to sell more BioZyme products.

“The uptick in the market the last few years has helped, but getting our foot in the door is the big challenge,” he said. “Once a client switches over, and they see the Amaferm advantage in their cows, they are usually hooked. We are seeing good conversion.”