Ben Benson said he wouldn't believe the conversations he's had in the last week if he thought of them when he co-founded Big Cob Hybrids 11 years ago.
Even as the business has grown, new hurdles emerged. This year dealt a major hurdle with the coronavirus. That altered some of the distribution and relationship with farmers, but it didn't alter farmers' output.
So Big Cob Hybrids had to adapt. Luckily, its latest innovation was already about 19 months in the making.
Benson said that Big Cob Hybrids launched its mobile application in 2018. That provided a guide for customers with information on products, services and a direct line to a sales representative and to the business's front office. On Oct. 20 Big Cob Hybrids announced the introduction of shop.bigcob.com, an online store that gives customers a local planting guide and access to seeds.
“That app was a bridge into this,” Benson said. “And you have to have that bridge.”
Websites offering those services are a novelty. It provides growers a comparison tool and opportunity to chat with trained seed placement experts and request customized field-by-field planting plans. The Big Cob Hybrids team reviews, researches and builds a planting plan that it sends out within 24 hours of receiving those requests.
It's an idea Benson struggled to fully devise on rollout. He wondered how to streamline a price and how to advertise it online without upsetting current customers who were used to a different price. Those logistics took about seven months and then came another 18 months of software implementation.
The endeavor itself may have brought the biggest hurdle of all – connection. Benson said planters have long enjoyed a working relationship with seed representatives. He wanted to maintain that while going into a world of human distancing.
“Our business is built on field-by-field planning and product placement,” Benson said. “How do we do that and not leave customers buying a random bag of seed? Because that's not good and when you do that you lower chances of success.”
That's where the idea for a seed representative came from. Benson said it's not an hourly employee answering a message board; instead customers talk with a full-time Big Cob Hybrids staff member. They ask farmers to talk about their farm specifics briefly in order to plot a plan.
Benson also said they've shied away from outside sales representatives who may have bothered and pressured farmers into buying seed. He didn't want harassment marketing. If farmers want an in-person relationship with their seed team, Benson's always welcomed them.
“You need that reputation and customer relationship,” he said. “We built a reputation over 10 years that allowed us to move into this position.”
He said the Seward-based business is going against giants. And it's thriving. Benson said the next venture is improving on farm-fit planning. He wants to improve its current system beyond planning and improving customer satisfaction. Long-term, he wants to take the guess work out of planning.
