Marketing rules for success in 2013: Even a bull market can stress your bottom line

摘要

This year challenged everything about marketing I thought I knew. Nothing worked - not hedging ahead, not seasonal selling, not scale-up selling. I wish I had just harvested it and put it in my bin." This was the comment from a very frustrated, longtime customer from western Illinois. It has been a challenging year for everyone in the grain industry. This includes farmers, ethanol plants, grain elevators, and commodity advisers. Over the last four years in this "Your Profit" column, I have written about my three-step marketing and risk-management plan.