Conservation Selling Skills in the Minnesota River Basin
Three Rivers Resource Conservation and Development
Most employees in the conservation field do not have professional selling skills – they have conservation technical skills. To improve the skills in selling conservation, Three Rivers Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) wanted to offer two (2) Conservation Selling Skills Seminars within the Minnesota River Basin.
Three Rivers RC&D staff contacted conservation organizations and agency personnel in the basin to provide key employees an awareness and opportunity of the Conservation Selling Skills Seminars. Contacts to potential participants were made through phone calls, letters, emails, and personal contacts. The Minnesota River Basin covers many square miles and by offering two (2) seminars on opposite sides of the watershed: it was determined that participant expenses would be reduced allowing for greater agency participation. The purpose and/or objective of the Three Rivers RC&D was to provide two Conservation Selling Skills Seminar within the Minnesota River Basin with approximately 30 people attending each seminar in order to improve the attendees skills in selling conservation.
Three Rivers RC&D successfully held two 2-day seminars within the Minnesota River Basin. The seminars were held in Mankato and Montevideo. The presenter for each seminar was Chuck Hitzemann founder of the Virginia based marketing and management consulting firm Positive Growth International. Mr. Hitzemann is a personal coach and conducts workshops in selling skills, marketing, and coaching. He has over 20 years of agricultural experience, and is the author of “What makes Winners Win – The Five Attributes for Success in Selling”.
Key points of the seminars included several professional selling skills to conservation stewardship solutions and situations. Participants learned the following skills through presentation, discussions, and small group exercises: the steps in the buying process, client motivation factors, pre-call preparation, recognizing and dealing with behavior styles, questioning and listening skills, presentation skills, dealing with client concerns, obtaining commitment and closing skills, follow-up practices, dealing with unsatisfied clients, organizational and time managements skills, telephone skills, and individual action plans.
In the two seminars, participants found the following particularly interesting: building client records, open-ended questions, call preparations, dealing with behavioral types and the skills of listening, organization, and client assessment.
Evaluations will be sent out to the 51 participants on a quarterly basis for one year. This will track the progress of participants and provide valuable information on the Best Management Practices (BMP) being implemented within the Minnesota River Basin.
Three Rivers RC&D would like to thank their partners, Greater Blue Earth River Basin Alliance and Lac qui Parle-Yellow Bank Clean Water Partnership for providing assistance and making the Conservation Selling Skills project a success. Three Rivers RC&D would also like to thank the McKnight Foundation for providing the funding making the seminars possible.
To see responses to the participant questionnaires, we have posted them here: 1st quarter
