Holiday Communications for the Ag Sales Professional

7 Ways you can make this the

“The most wonderful time of the year”

It’s the week before the Christmas Holidays and I have several questions for you:

Is it really the most wonderful time of the year?
Does it really only come around once a year?
Is Santa really on his way to spread cheer throughout the farmland?

If you are older than 12, then the answer to all three questions is “No”.

First, I love the holidays and all that they stand for. I also think it’s great that we pause and take a break to honor Christmas, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Easter, Independence Day, and so on. These are needed breaks and milestones throughout the year.

However, in agribusiness, these can be some of the most stressful times of the year. If you are in the northern hemisphere, then the Christmas and New Years holidays fall during some of the coldest and heaviest snowfall times of the year. Daylight is shorter and operations run well into the night.

Holidays are also when many employees take vacation. This leaves those that don’t with heavier workloads. In many cases, an employee’s backup is pulled in to complete unfamiliar tasks and deliveries. Add to this entire mix that many feed mills, agronomy retail locations, and manufacturing facilities will shut down all together for a brief period of time. Obviously causing production and inventory reductions.

But wait there’s more! So far, we have only discussed our company. These very same set of stressful circumstances are going on with your vendor’s business as well as your customer’s business.

Let’s just summarize this entire situation as a stressful tradition. We are glad to have but happy when it’s over and we can get back to “normal”.

Holiday stress is where the salesperson and sales manager can make a huge difference in the lives of their fellow employees as well as their customers. A little effort by the sales team goes a long way. Why? Because making any effort to reduce this stress when you don’t have to will show up all year long.

As a salesperson, you can certainly duck into the excuse that “Customer’s don’t want to see or hear from salespeople right now. Our drivers and operations team are swamped. I better leave them alone. The office team is trying to get ready for year end. I should leave them alone…”

And, you might be justified in your thinking these things. You might see many of your fellow salespeople act this way. However, try one or more of the seven action items below and see what it does for the team that supports you all year long. Take time to better connect with those that produce, administer, and deliver your sales all year long.

7 Ways to make the holidays, “The most wonderful time of the year”

Over-communicate: This is an easy one. With all that I mentioned above, the holidays are riddled with miscommunication opportunities. Step up the frequency and speed with which you communicate. Show up more often. Ask key people in your business what communication they need from you.
Don’t disappear: Again, this is an easy one. Too often, I hear the complaint that the office can’t get hold of the salesperson or the customer – the customer’s feed is made and loaded on the truck, but the driver or office needs some information to complete the order. Don’t disappear and use the excuse of family time. Yes, you can protect yourself from being too involved in day to day. However, the holidays are bad times to try to accomplish that. That can be better fixed during slower times. Right now, I highly recommend you step forward and lead communications when needed.
Show up: I mean physically show up. In the most stressful or difficult holiday times, show up and observe, facilitate, and help ease the difficulty. I am not saying to jump on a forklift and load trucks. For most salespeople, such as me, that would be a safety issue. Second, it would most likely make the operation run slower. I mean, show up and observe what’s going on. Stay out of the way, but try to understand the difficulties of what these folks are trying to do. Look at it from the standpoint of just trying to understand what actually happens on the ground. Most salespeople work first shift and part of second shift. My guess is that very few operations teams will see a salesperson on the last part of second or any of third shift. Yet, in a three-shift business, they manufacture up to two thirds of your products. Anytime you have a habitual problem area with deliveries, inventory, product quality, invoicing, etc., I strongly recommend that you show up and see for yourself what is going on. Depending on the business, you might need to coordinate this ahead of time, most likely with the manager of that department.
See something, say something, and involve someone: As you implement the first three points above, you are going to make observations. Maybe an easier way for tasks to be accomplished. Maybe a task that is unnecessary. Whatever it is, I encourage you to ask the person completing the task about these observations. If you have ideas, you can certainly ask that operator about them. Your ideas can also be a topic to discuss with their manager as to ways to improve. Another “See something, Say something” opportunity occurs when you see good employees struggling. The more you get to know them, the more you might see moments of frustration, anxiety, job burnout, or even depression. Too often, this goes unnoticed until they resign or fall into bad behavior patterns and get terminated. This can be an opportunity to involve someone to help.
Recognition is sometimes all that is needed: You don’t have to be a VP of anything to provide recognition. In many cases, good hard-working employees just want someone to notice it. No trophies, no titles, no awards ceremony. Start by telling the person right when you notice their actions or results that are worthy of recognition. Then, if you feel it is worthy enough, let their manager know. Maybe let your manager know as they might be able to amp up the recognition to a bigger audience.
Learn and improve: This is not the last time you will have holiday struggles. In three months, it’s Easter. Two months later, Memorial Day. Six weeks later, Independence Day, and on and on. Learn your businesses’ lessons from each holiday and get better each time. One way I liked to do this was sending out an email reminder about two weeks before the holiday. I sent it to my salespeople as well as the internal teams that supported them. It was a very short email that said, “Hey, it’s June 15^th and the 4^th of July is coming up soon. Now is the time to make sure customers don’t run out of our products on July 3^rd at 3:00 pm and need a same day order. Now is the time to coordinate any specific deliveries or inventory we need before we shut the place down for 24 hours.” I know right now you might be thinking, “Duh, does that really need to be said?” My answer is, “Yes it does. And it is helpful!”
Restart quickly: The mood and engagement on the Monday after Thanksgiving and the ten or so days around Christmas/New Years feels like slogging through a mud bog. Everyone is in their own shocked existence from being off work. Many are in disbelief that the problems they had before the holidays didn’t magically fix themselves over the time off. Here’ a productivity tip. Jump in with both feet, quickly. Fight off the tendency to coast along until two or three in the afternoon before actually having a conversation. If in a leadership position, address the mood up front, let people know it’s normal, and then provide some form of encouragement to what’s coming up in the near future.

One of the most important reasons to implement any of these seven is that your customers are expecting it. They expect that you know when the holidays are every year. They expect you to plan for them and not drop the ball at critical moments.

Think about yourself as a customer. What if your favorite grocery store forgot to stock up on turkeys in November? Or, you fly to the Superbowl and the car rental company runs out of cars because they forgot to increase their inventory ahead of the big game. Customers expect a business to prepare for the obvious holiday.

Good luck and Merry Christmas to everyone!