Financial and Productivity Apps to Keep You in Check

Your iPhone can be a powerful tool for business – or a complete distraction. The key to any software program or app is finding the right match for your specific needs or deficiencies and then committing to using the tool so you can take advantage of the benefits. The following are a few apps that may be able to enhance record keeping systems, automatically sync income or expense data with your financial software, increase communication and transparency with your team and boost productivity.

Xpense Tracker
An all-inclusive expense tracking and reporting application for dealers wishing to track their expenses and mileage. It’s power does not end at the iPhone but extends to the desktop by allowing emailing or exporting of the expense files and accompanying photo receipts directly to the desktop.

  • Quickly snap shots of receipts for easy scans and financial tracking.
  • Track your mileage in real time by using your device’s integrated GPS.
  • Export your records in .PDF and .CSV file formats.

Hours Tracker
Need a way to track your time or an effective tool for employees to use so they can send you time reports? Clock in and out as you work. Or, add entries yourself in just a few quick taps. Time entries are automatically created when you clock out.

Easily review your past entries, grouped by day, week, month or pay period. You can easily export your data by job, date or selection. Choose to export as a text summary or in spreadsheet-ready CSV format.

SLACK
All your team communication in one place. Slack is a new way to get more done, spend less time in meetings and reduce email.

  • Real-time messaging and file sharing for one-to-one and group conversations.
  • Powerful search and archiving, so you can find information easily.
  • Instantly syncs across all devices.
  • Configurable notifications for desktop, mobile, and email.
  • Proven to make your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.

Quickbooks Payment Pro
GET PAID QUICKLY … ANYWHERE, ANYTIME. Plug the card reader into your iPhone or iPad and swipe credit cards quickly and securely. Or, if you don’t have a card reader, you can always scan a card with your camera or key in the card details directly.

Your customer signs right on your device to authorize the payment. Then, you can email or text a receipt to your customer. Accepting a payment takes just a few taps from start to finish.

Wunderlist
Wunderlist allows dealers to access their to-do lists from almost anywhere. Star important tasks, create multiple lists, sort by due date and priority and add tasks via e-mail.

Since multiple parties can edit lists, the app doubles up as a collaboration tool that works across desktop and mobile.

Freedom – Reduce Distractions
With so many distractions and possibilities in your digital life, it’s easy to get scattered. Freedom blocks digital distractions so you can be more productive. Start a Freedom session, and you’re blocked from all distractions on your phone or tablet. Freedom gives you peace and quiet, so you can accomplish more.
Rescue Time: Android alternative

New Product Alert

CONCEPT•AID® POWER TUB
SAME GREAT TUB NOW AVAILABLE IN A MORE CONVENIENT 50 LB TUB FOR EASY LIFTING
The Concept•Aid Power Tub is a superior product from a fortification perspective because it contains all-natural vegetable protein sources. This tub was designed to go head-to-head with the competition molasses tub in your area, whether it is Rangeland, Rio or any others.

VITAFERM® 30:13 TUB
The new VitaFerm 30:13 Tub, is a free choice supplement for beef cattle on forage based diets. It contains 30% protein and includes no more than 13% equivalent crude protein from non-protein nitrogen. It is a cooked molasses tub that is fully mineral fortified and contains organic copper as well as Amaferm®. It allows for a higher protein level at a low feeding rate. This tub is an economical solution when more protein supplementation is required and the producer is primarily focused on cost per unit of protein.

Digital Punch Card

Technology has come a long way. It’s great when it works, but more importantly, to work it must be easy. Retail outlets have used promotions and customer loyalty programs for ages to drive sales and repeat business, but often these programs are difficult to manage for both the store staff and the customer. However, there is an innovative program available that automates the management of rewards points and makes communicating with your customers easy!

Here are some examples:

  • Buy 10 bags of Sure Champ® and earn a show stick, pig whip or brush.
  • For every 10th visit to the store where you purchase $50 or more, earn a free gift.
  • Come in on your birthday and receive $10 off your purchase.
  • Earn double loyalty points on Tuesdays.

These types of incentives are appealing to those customers who enjoy a bonus, and if done strategically, can be an effective way to ramp up business on specific days that may normally be slow or to promote slower moving products. Additionally, it’s a great way to stay in front of your clients and market in a fun way.

OptSpot (www.optspot.com) combines customer loyalty and text message marketing to increase customer frequency, connect with customers and drive instant revenue. Customers simply sign-up & check-in using their mobile phone number. Points are automatically tracked & rewards are earned based on points. Re-connection is automated and done through text messaging.

Some Cool Features
Customer Loyalty: Using a mobile number to track points and rewards is easy. Customers either enter their number into the tablet or you do it on your point of sale checkout system for them. Points are tracked and rewards are earned automatically.

Auto-Engage: Reconnecting with your customers automatically based on frequency is nearly impossible without innovative solutions. This text program will send a text message to those customers who have not visited in 30, 60 or 90 days inviting them back more often.

Text Message Blasts: Being able to get your message in your customer’s pockets can drive instant revenue. Send limited time offers, promotions, etc. and watch your business grow.

Collect More Data: Collect important customer data and add them to your own
customer relationship management (CRM) software through an automated text call to action.

Health Protocols For Newborn Calves

Calving season is here for many producers and right around the corner for others. It is time to begin thinking about health protocols for newborn calves. Those first few weeks of life are a stressful period in young calves’ lives, but by ensuring they receive the proper nutrition, vitamins and minerals, producers can make sure calves achieve a strong start.

Healthy calves start with healthy mother cows. At this stage of the cow’s life, it is important that she receives a nutrient-rich diet with the appropriate amount of protein. By working with your BioZyme Area Sales Manager or one of the nutritionists, they can assist with forage testing and ration balancing to get cows on the right track.

We recommend a high-quality breeding mineral like Concept•Aid® be fed a minimum of 30 days prior to calving through breeding season. Concept•Aid is high in vitamin E and selenium, which are important for colostrum quality. Colostrum production begins as early as 4-5 weeks prior to calving, so you want to make sure that the cow is ready. Once the calf is born, it is important that it receives colostrum within the first 24 hours. However, for maximum immunity, receiving colostrum within six hours is best.

Encouraging your customers to give a dose of Vita Charge® gel or a Vita Charge bolus at birth and/or tagging will help calves more successfully deal with stress. Vita Charge gives the calf a boost of B-vitamins to encourage intake. Vita Charge also contains Amaferm®, a prebiotic that multiplies the good bacteria in the calf’s stomach. At this point in the calf’s life, it doesn’t make sense to give a probiotic as the calf is a functional monogastric, and therefore, probiotics won’t help the rumen.

As calves begin to mature, putting a Vita Charge Stress Tub in an area where the cows can’t get to it, such as a calf hutch or bedded shed, can provide additional health benefits. In addition to vitamins, minerals and Amaferm, the Vita Charge Stress Tub contains MOS that can greatly help with scour issues and promote overall health.

It is best for your customers to contact their local veterinarian about vaccinations. Recommended vaccinations can vary greatly by geographic region, and a local veterinarian will be able to give the best advice.

Product Focus: Vita Charge® and IGR Minerals

Tag’ Em, Vita Charge Em’

Calving season provides an excellent opportunity to capitalize on Vita Charge sales. Calving is stressful on both the cows and calves, and we all know that stress can negatively affect the digestive system. Vita Charge comes in seven different formulas giving producers the opportunity to select the product that is most convenient to administer and suited for the animal.

Vita Charge®

Key Selling Points:

  • Combines essential vitamins, organic trace mineral and Amaferm® to support microbial health
  • Creates measurable improvement in appetite and health
  • Has no interaction with antibiotics

March – Letters From Lisa

Being innovative or doing things a little differently than everyone else – enough to create differentiation – involves risk. It means openly sharing ideas, even ideas that are undeveloped, half-baked and a long way from being concrete. Innovation means not worrying if an idea is not fully formed or regarded by others as irrelevant, or going against the stream. It means it is fine to suggest something truly disruptive.

Status, turf and fear of embarrassment can lead to hesitation, so when you want people in your organization to give their ideas, you must create safety for them. It’s not enough to give your team a venue to share ideas if the atmosphere is pervaded by rules, rigid structure and unspoken judgment. This is true around products, processes, advertising or any area of the business. Instead, do the following things:

1) Challenge, Don’t Dictate

Ask questions and begin conversations, but don’t dictate a path or force a solution. Like General George Patton said, “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

2) Question, Don’t Reject Outright

Always draw out as many ideas as you can. Don’t reject an idea immediately because you might reject another idea that hasn’t even surfaced yet. Ask why or how to further the idea. The original idea might not be a keeper, but after asking questions, you might find the next great idea. Remember the words of Nobel Prize laureate Linus Pauling: “The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas, and throw the bad ones away.”

3) Maintain Curiosity

Be passionate about finding the right solution or idea. Don’t take breaks, check email, leave the room or take phone calls during the idea discussion. Keep the momentum of these discussions rolling, and remember, sometimes the best discussions happen outside of the office.

4) Be Optimistic, Believe

Innovation isn’t always an overnight process, so it’s important to keep spirits up, cheer, thank and support. Belief is a powerful risk buster. Believe in the idea once in place enough for it to be a no brainer for success.

The VitaFerm® HEAT mineral is a perfect example of how using these steps work. I asked the team in April 2014 to help create ways we could reduce our summer sales slump. After many ideas were discussed in great detail and noise volume for more than two days (that’s a long time for me not to check email ☺), we decided to create a mineral focused on helping with summer heat instead of summer grass. The nutrition team went to work to create a research-based mineral that would lower heat stress, control flies and help cattle deal with the challenges of fescue. After some testing, the product was ready to go and hit the market in the summer of 2014. At the end of the summer we had sold 26 tons – not exactly enough to get us out of our summer sales slump. However, we remained optimistic and worked harder in 2015 to believe this innovative idea was an opportunity. We sold 437 tons. Now, that’s enough to reduce any slump!

P.S. If you haven’t checked into the VitaFerm HEAT and HEAT 3G mineral,
I would encourage you to do so. Seventeen times growth in one year is every business’ dream.

lisa-norton-signature

Creason Joins Inside Sales Team

We are very excited to welcome Erin Creason to our BioZyme Inside Sales Team as an Inside Sales Coordinator. Erin has been involved in the livestock industry since a young age, and was active in FFA through high school.

In 2009, Erin graduated from Northwest Missouri State University with a Bachelor’s in agriculture ccience, and an emphasis in agriculture education. Today, she and her husband, Ed, own and operate Creason Genetics, where they raise and exhibit show pigs, primarily Berkshires, throughout the country.

Dorothy Orts :: 2015 Top Biozyme Area Sales Manager

Congratulations to Dorothy Orts on another outstanding year with BioZyme! Dorothy has been with the company since 1997 and exudes an unparalleled passion for this industry. She is her customers’ biggest advocate and is constantly challenging herself and the company to develop new and creative ideas to help dealers offer practical solutions for their customers. She believes wholeheartedly in BioZyme’s commitment to research and always strives to help the customer understand the full value and potential of a product.

Dorothy’s 3 Tips for Sales Success:

  • Be patient but persistent
  • No doesn’t mean no – it just means not now (especially if they have a true understanding of the power of Amaferm®)
  • If you don’t stop to see a prospect, he or she CAN’T buy

With over $2 million dollars in sales in 2015, Dorothy is a vital part of our organization, a leader and most importantly, an example amongst our sales team. Thank you, Dorothy, for your passion, dedication and commitment to BioZyme and to providing great service to our dealers. 

Don’t Sell. Help.

It’s a safe bet that most people have had a bad experience with a sales person. You may even cringe, roll your eyes or your stomach turns when you hear the words “sales person.” Kelley Robertson, author of Stop, Ask & Listen – Proven Sales Techniques to Turn Browsers into Buyers and The Secrets of Power Selling, lists seven reasons why customers hate sales people:

1.) They don’t listen
2.) They talk too much
3.) Lack of knowledge
4.) Lack of follow-up
5.) They lie
6.) Fail to understand the customers’ needs
7.) Refusal to take “no” for an answer

However, sales are essential for business. After all, nothing happens until you sell something. So how do you find balance? How do you become aggressive in growing your business without being labeled as a “sales person?”

To be great at selling, you must first be passionate about the product(s) or service(s) you’re representing; and secondly be passionate about the people you serve. This type of passion is something a dealer can rarely fake. A passion for what you’re selling coupled with a passion for helping your customers make the best decisions for their operations will come across in everything you say or do.

This is one area BioZyme® dealers often do not have trouble as 80% of dealers use the product personally and have experienced firsthand results they are passionate about sharing. Here are four reasons this type of passion is a game-changer for your business:

Passion Builds Trust with Customers
There are no sales without trust, and a passion for selling can cement trust between a dealer and a potential customer like nothing else. When passion is genuine, customers know it, and will respond to it by placing their trust in you and your business. A passion for selling also helps build trust because:

  • A sales person with passion truly wants to understand the customer and their unique needs and then sculpt how a product or service fits into that picture.
  • When a sales person is fully invested in the products he or she represents, that passion can be contagious for customers.
  • Passion permits a sales person to go after the best possible outcome – even if the best possible outcome for the prospect is not the product he or she originally had in mind.

    Passion Keeps the Sales Pipeline Full
    One of the great things about a passion for selling is that it can help dealers maintain a full sales pipeline without as much effort as those who lack such a passion. Why? A passion for selling turns customers into advocates (see page 6) who will recommend the dealer and their products to others. Word-of-mouth marketing continually sends new leads who are interested and ready to buy to the dealer. Having these customers who are also willing to provide testimonials and refer other customers, is priceless in any industry.

    Passion Allows Dealers to Be Persistent
    Persistence is always a watchword in sales since customers will not always be quick to pick up the phone or return a call. Great dealers who have a passion for selling have an advantage here because that passion helps them overcome such barriers and be persistent in pursuing the sale without becoming a hindrance to the potential customer. With passion, great dealers can come up with creative solutions to reach their prospects and ultimately make the sale.

    Passion Helps Dealers Continually Improve
    When dealers have a passion for selling, that passion often makes itself known through continual improvement. No dealer is perfect, but not all dealers are willing to make the commitment of time, money and energy it takes to reach the next level. Those who have a passion for selling are willing to make this commitment not only because it is the best thing for their careers, but also because it is what they want to do. That is passion for selling in action.

Be The “Good” In Their Morning, Afternoon Or Evening

Learn how LEO SANFTNER of Cottor FARMS serves customers passionately

Leo Sanftner
Cottor Farms, Osceola, WI
Sales Agent

One word that best describes how you work: Positive

First, tell us what you feel separates your business from other feed supply operations? There are not a lot of feed mills in our area; they’ve become a thing of the past. Regardless if our door closes at 5 p.m., I stay until the job is done, all deliveries are made and all the customers have the product they need.


How do you keep your to-do list? I run a log each day by way of a spiral notebook at my desk. At the end of each day I update it for the next business day.


What everyday thing are you better at than everyone else? When the telephone rings in the morning, I say “Good morning, this is Leo.” When it rings in the afternoon I say, “Good afternoon, this is Leo.” When it’s evening I say, “Good evening, this is Leo.” I try to be the good morning, good afternoon and good evening for them.


What’s your secret? I am passionate about people and livestock. I’ve gone through a lot of stuff through the years, — feeling low, health issues, stress at
work, etc., so I try to help other people out. I forget about my problems and take on their problems. It makes me feel good.


What are you currently reading? The Biozyme® VISION Dealer Newsletter on my phone or computer. I love to read that and learn what’s going on in
other places. I also read the Angus Journal and Hereford World.


How do you recharge? By going home and getting six to seven hours of sleep a night. I love my Mountain Dew while I’m driving. That recharges me.


What is your favorite and least-favorite task at work? My least favorite task is sitting at my desk. I like to stay busy so my favorite is when I’m manufacturing feed, helping customers, working out new diets and checking on
old diets.


What is one area you’d like to improve in regarding business?  Advertising. I’m currently working on that. We are putting up a nice sign on the highway that will change daily or weekly to display different specials we are running. Next, I’ll start putting ads in newspapers. I feel more people need to know Cottor Farms is here to help.


Describe your ideal customer. All of them.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? My ag instructor said to me years ago, “Your English teacher will say, ‘Leo can sell ice cubes to Eskimos.’ But I say, “No, Leo would sell them a wood stove.” I wouldn’t sell a customer something they don’t need.


Why do you love this business? I’ve been in the cattle business all my life. It’s my passion. I milked cows, and the day came when I didn’t milk anymore. Then I wanted to expand my beef operation. I have and I can help others with their operations. So my dream has come true.