• Jun 22, 2017

Be the Hero with your Customers

This is the third in a series of articles about how Answer Tech® Data Silo™ can enable you to help farmers leverage the power of the data they collect. Here, Matt Hesse, retail technology manager for WinField United, discusses how you can help farmers in overcoming obstacles to successfully — and painlessly — use Data Silo™ to improve their yield and ROI potential.
 
Although many farmers collaborate with their agronomists and ag retailers on a regular basis about in-field management strategies, they may be more reluctant to share field data, which, as you know, can impede good decision-making. How can you encourage farmers to have confidence in a tool like Answer Tech® Data Silo™, which can securely store and manage their data for use with other tech tools?
 
Here are a few of the common pushbacks you might hear from farmers about data management and tips for addressing them.
 
1. “I don’t want to share my data because it might get into the wrong hands.”
Probably the biggest misconception about tools such as Data Silo™ is that information will be shared outside of the realm of you and the farmer. I recommend sitting down with customers and having an honest conversation about who can see that data and where information is going. It might go something like this:
 
“Mr. Farmer, instead of me as your agronomist coming out to your farm at certain times of the year and asking you for this data, consider putting your information into this system so I can review and absorb it prior to meeting with you. This allows me to be much more effective with our time together to work on next year’s recommendations or review the information we worked on for this year.
 
To be clear, you own your data. You can let me see only as much as you feel comfortable having me see. And you can take your data back at any time. You are in control.” 
 
2. “I already have too many passwords to remember.”
One of the features Data Silo™ offers is single sign-on. This means that as systems connect to it, Data Silo™ not only moves selected information seamlessly; it also allows for easy, secure sign-in processes. Farm data such as boundaries, zones, as-applied information, and yield and soil sampling data is available across multiple platforms to use in determining in-season insights and planning for the operation’s future.
 
3. “I have so much data in so many different places, it’s impossible to use.”
There are new technologies that can locate far-flung information. For example, if for some reason a farmer did not designate a field boundary, but does have georeferenced planting or harvest data, there are ways to bring that information into Data Silo™ and begin organizing it in a way that allows that farmer to move forward.
Performing that data rescue can make you the hero.
 
Data Silo™ allows you to have more effective farmer conversations, and helps position you as the trusted agronomic advisor as well as the trusted technology expert. Talk with your WinField United representative about how this data-management system can help your customers turn obstacles into steppingstones to greater success. In a noisy marketplace, farmers will appreciate having you to turn to.

Check out the rest of the series on Answer Tech® Data Silo™: Free Farmers from Data DutyConnected Data Brings DividendsHelp Farmers Implement a Whole Farm Tech Strategy