Exeter, Neb.-based Boeck Farm Outfitters made national headlines when it became the first dealer in the U.S. to sell and service Greeneye Technology.
“It’s a smart spraying system with cameras on the boom that identify weeds so that it only sprays weeds,” says Cody Boeck, operations director for Boeck Farm Outfitters. “I like that Greeneye is brand agnostic — you can put it on different colored sprayers. And there are also no per-acre fees, which is a huge selling point to farmers. They don’t want companies reaching in their pockets every month. Plus, the ROI is fast. It takes about 8,000 acres to pay for the system.”
Greeneye isn't the only emerging company to express interest in partnering with Boeck recently. Cody says his desk is often covered with pamphlets and business cards picked up from trade shows. He keeps an open mind and rarely turns down an opportunity to meet with a company because he never knows when a new product will come along that fits the Boeck Farm Outfitters business model. Plus, he likes to stay up to date on what's going on in the market.
How does Boeck sort through the noise and narrow down which technologies are actually worth the investment? He created a Venn diagram (pictured below) to guide his evaluation process, with 3 categories — cheap, shiny/cool and obvious ROI. Autosteer is an example of a technology that fits all 3 categories. If something fits 2 of the 3 categories, like Greeneye, Boeck is confident his team can sell it to customers.
"Greeneye fits in with the shiny/cool and obvious ROI categories," he says. "The challenge with the product is it's not cheap, but it at least gives me 2 categories to sell from, which makes me confident it's going to fit our business model."
Selling the Team on New Tech
Once Cody identifies a product with promising potential, he asks the following questions before making a final decision on whether it's the right fit for the dealership:
Do I have an expert on staff? Will I have to hire someone externally?
Is this complementary or adjacent to what I'm already doing?
What's the ROI timeframe?
Am I now a Jack of All Trades and Master of None?
Who am I working with? Is the support from the vendor going to be there?
"If you're going to invest a lot of money in bringing in a new product or service, you better be dang confident that it's going to work because it can sink you if not," Boeck says.
“When people get a little squirrelly about changes, I always ask them, 'What would it look like if our business looked exactly the same 10 years from now as it does today?'...”
The next step is to sell the team on the new product and secure buy-in from everyone on staff. That's easier said than done, Boeck says, as it's human nature to second guess and say things like:
"Great! More work on my plate."
"What I do must not be important."
"I got hired to do X, now I'm being asked to do Y."
"The owners just want to get rich."
Boeck says it's important to have an effective communications strategy with your team when bringing new products to the mix. He preaches 2 guiding principles: Diversification is good and evolution is imperative.
"When people get a little squirrelly about changes, I always ask them, 'What would it look like if our business looked exactly the same 10 years from now as it does today?' And then you see the look in their eye that says, 'OK, not good.' We're failing if we haven't moved forward in 10 years. But to move forward, you've got to make changes and you've got to try new things."
Selling New Tech to Farmers
Once his team buys in, Boeck turns his focus to the customer. Knowing who won't buy, understanding where the product is in the hype cycle, being realistic with the macro marketplace and empowering your sellers are all important steps in the sales process.
Referencing the adoption curve pictured below, Boeck identifies a small percentage of farmers who are actually viable targets for cutting-edge technology.
"We're talking about 15-16% of people who are realistically viable sales candidates for a new product, especially in agriculture," Boeck says. "You can't say, 'Well, I work with 200 farms, look at the opportunity.' With ag tech, you really work with maybe 30 farms. And we hope that will grow over time, but it helps to be realistic about the opportunity with new technology.
"Buying motives are really important, too, with new technology," he adds. "You've got your 'low-cost farmers.' You've got your 'ROI farmers' whose farms might not look pretty, but they'd spend $100,000 to make $110,000. They know how the math works and you can't trick them either. They know exactly where everything's going. The 'respect farmers' are good for new tech because they want to be well-liked in the community and they want their business to look respectable. The 'power farmer' is the one that wants to farm a lot of acres. He's got nice, shiny equipment and wants to leverage his farm to get better deals from vendors. And then you've got your 'easy-button farmer' who just wants whatever it takes to get him to the lake by Friday afternoon."
The low-cost farmers and the power farmers are two types that are least likely to buy new technology, Boeck says. Cutting-edge products usually aren't cheap, which is why the low-cost farmer isn't a good candidate, while the power farmers are more concerned with "big and showy," he adds.
Understanding the Hype Cycle
The hype cycle begins with a "technology trigger" when a product first comes out and generates a bevy of excitement in the market. But as time goes on, excitement drops off when inflated expectations aren't met. Boeck says it's critical to understand where your new product is on the hype cycle.
"ChatGPT is a good example," he says. "When it was released in 2022, all of the headlines said it's going to take over everything, robots are going to rule the world and we aren't even going to need to work anymore. And then just 18 months later, we were already talking about how the AI revolution is losing steam. We haven't even given it a chance.
"But behind the scenes, when excitement goes down in the hype cycle, there is actually growth happening," he adds. "There isn't a lot of growth when something new comes out because we don't know what to do with it. At about the time when people are throwing it to the side and saying, 'Well, this isn't going to do what we thought,' that's when progress is happening behind the scenes and the slope of enlightenment starts to come up."
Boeck also points out the correlation between good corn prices and precision technology adoption. Everyone seems to have something new on their farm when prices are good, he says, and then there's a lull when prices drop.
"Innovation in tech doesn't stop during those lulls," Boeck says. "It's still going. We just get the opportunity when prices are good to really push the gas pedal and go forward. Just understand if your product is in the upward tick of a hype cycle, and we've got low corn prices, know what's coming. You're going to hit the backside of that curve. Corn prices are tough, but if you believe in the product, it will hit eventually."
Marketing New Tech
Boeck Farm Outfitters has tried it all when it comes to marketing new products — emails, text messaging, billboards and social media. Cody wasn't sure if all the marketing was making a difference at one point, until he started thinking about it from the customer's perspective.
"If a postcard comes to my house for a kitchen remodeling company, even if I think it looks cool and they do a good job, I'm not doing a kitchen remodel right now, so it goes in the trash," he says. "I might hear a radio advertisement from them. I might see a billboard from them. But it's in one ear and out the other because I'm not in the market for a kitchen remodel.
"But if my wife comes to me a year later and says, 'Hey, I think we've got enough money saved up. It's about time we do that kitchen remodel.' My brain goes back and says, 'That postcard or advertisement I saw a year ago looked cool, let's look at them first.' That's all we're doing with marketing. We want to be on the back burner, so that when it's on the front burner, we're there."
Takeaways
- Make sure your dealership is prepared to sell and service a new product or technology before bringing it on board. Boeck Farm Outfitters opened a dedicated facility at its dealership where it will retrofit customers’ existing sprayers with Greeneye Technology. It also empowered an extra salesperson to deal with the expected high level of demand.
- Sell your team on new technology before selling your customers on it. Have a communication strategy in place to show your staff the benefits of change and how it helps elevate the dealership.
- Be patient with new technology and marketing. Farmers are more likely to spend money and adopt technology when corn prices are up. An effective billboard or radio advertisement might not lead to a purchase right away, but it ultimately will if sticks with the customer.
Boeck says it's not realistic to expect the ag industry to adopt technology at the same pace as other industries because the average age of farmers is 18-20 years older than other professions. But that gives him even more reason to believe a precision technology boom is on the horizon.
"Because of the average age in our industry, there is a major flip coming in who owns the checkbook in the next 5-10 years," Boeck says. "And who is better positioned to take advantage of the next generation who grew up with technology than us? We are in position to take advantage of this industry becoming a lot more tech-savvy and tech-heavy in the next 5-10 years."
