The Farmers Edge story is a compelling one, even to an untrained urbanite who's never set foot on farmland. It goes like this. Farmers Edge provides field-specific, real-time analytics on a farmer's land, then uses that data to determine specifically when, what, and how much to feed it. Also in the mix is a team of sales and tech reps who also happen to be farmers, agronomists, certified crop advisers, and scientists. And the results are irrefutable: decreased costs, increased production, and peak efficiencies.

"We're a technology company, but we know the pain points of farmers," says president and CEO Wade Barnes. Barnes and co-founder Curtis MacKinnon sold the merits of the Farmers Edge product in the early days, when the company had only a theorythat variable rate technology, matched against field-specific soil and weather data, could make a significant difference in a farmer's bottom line. Slowly, as farmers gave them a chance to prove the theory, more and more of them came aboard. Today the theory has been proven in over 2 million acres of land, and more and more believers around the world have signed up for the services of Farmers Edge.

Yet despite the vast and growing market coverage, all the technology and the big data, and the need to access intermediaries as a means of getting its product to market, Farmers Edge is still there side by side with farmers. "We have a direct relationship with farms," says Barnes proudly. "Every farmer has direct communication with a rep, who of course has direct communication with our management team. That's unique." The larger agronomy firms typically sell their products through agents, wholesalers, or retailers, but Farmers Edgestill young, and comparatively small and nimbleliterally has its boots on the ground with farmers.

But what about its growth, and its inevitable expansion into the United States? Will that one-on-one relationship be sacrificed? Barnes feels that, although they'll have to adapt and utilize horizontal marketing channels, their ability to continue to crank out cutting edge products will still depend on a direct relationship with clients. "We've been lucky, because as we've grown up as a young tech-agronomy firm, we've established close partnerships with all of our growers, which has allowed us to basically use western Canada as our research and development department."

Questions

1. What is the main advantage of personal selling that's unattainable through any of the other tools in the IMC tool box?
2. Do you think empathy is an important part of the personal selling process? Why or why not?
3. Personal selling represents a push strategy, whereas all other components of the IMC tool box represent a pull strategy. Is it important to have a bit of both? Why or why not?