Exploring the needs and desires of your customers

摘要

There is no doubt that the past year has been one of challenging times for all businesses and your feed and grain business is no exception. You may be tempted to move into "survival mode" in times like this, but now is the very time to be proactive, adapt your business to the needs of your customers before your competitors do, and ultimately you will be more profitable. Your customers' needs and desires are changing and an excellent strategy is to actively explore these. In this column, we will provide you with some key results from the 2008 Large Commercial Producer survey that was conducted by the Center for Food and Agricultural Business at Purdue University. This survey, originally undertaken in 1993, has been completed every five years to gaininsight about the attitudes and buying behaviors of large producers. A unique aspect of the 2008 survey is that specific information on feed, seed and crop protection was collected and is reported in this article, compared to previous services where expendables were considered as one group.