During a recent trip to Nebraska, I had the opportunity to visit with a precision specialist at one of 3 dealerships all located a stone’s throw from each other. He acknowledged that with primary competitors in such close proximity, it’s critical to have an organized and targeted marketing plan.

Returning for a third time to the Agricultural Electronics Foundation’s (AEF) annual North American Plugfest event in Lincoln, Neb., I again marveled at the intensity of the dozens of engineers as they hustled from station to station in search of enhanced equipment compatibility.

With dealers looking to carve out a profitable precision niche with measurable ROI products and services, many are tapping the planting and application technology markets for high-demand hardware.

Celebrating my dad’s birthday this past weekend with family, one of the gifts he asked for — and we gave him — was a mobile tablet. This was admittedly a journey into uncharted technology waters for someone who’s never owned a cell phone and still regularly watches VHS cassettes.

Taking the pulse of precision farming dealers during the last few months, many say they’ve seen double-digit percentage drops in their precision hardware revenue during the last year.

While precision farming dealers still rely on those personal phone conversations when selling and supporting technology, some are taking advantage of texting to target customers with brief, but specific messages.

While data continues to collect dust for some, more farmers are trying to turn their compiled farm information into something more than “pretty pictures.” A multitude of service providers have data management solutions that promise profitability.

In the last edition of our e-newsletter, I related the revolving-door professional path of a friend to the fluctuating job market for precision farming specialists. After talking with a diverse group of independent and farm equipment dealers last week about their recruiting and retention practices, it seemed like a topic worth revisiting.

It’s increasingly common to hear dealers and other agricultural industry experts simply refer to precision farming as farming. With the ongoing integration of technology into machinery, auto-steer and GPS systems have become almost as standard as in-cab features as air conditioning.